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Stallman On the State of Free Software 25 Years On
TRNick writes "What's the state of free software, 25 years after GNU's birth? TechRadar has an interview with Richard Stallman to find out. Stallman thinks free software is making good progress: 'Nowadays hardware developers are also increasingly likely to publish the interface specs so that we can develop free software that works with the hardware. Perhaps we are turning the corner, but we still have a big fight on our hands before all computer users have freedom.' But how many of us actually run an operating system that Richard Stallman would consider free? Many of the more popular GNU/Linux distributions, including Mandriva and Ubuntu, bundle proprietary code with their free software packages. Perhaps free software has reached a large enough install base that companies are happy to use it for their own gain, but aren't quite so willing to make their own commitments to free software development. How important this is to the success of free software depends on how strong your stance is on freedom is."
Actually, Stallman's definition of free is straightforward and intuitive
Yes, if you use Free Code in Your Code, Your Code becomes Free Code.
I would not regard this as intuitive - for the programmer it causes a great deal of headache as the parent mentioned.
Additionally it is easy for Stallman, as leader of this movement to profit from speaking about this Great Idea, he never has to worry where his next paycheck comes from. The reality is that it results in there being no way to protect others Great Ideas from less scrupulious users and/or companies that can easily look at the code and rewrite it (or just copy it).
Code sharing is fine, but I should be free to protect my innovations if I like and not have a zealot who gets paid for telling me that I am not allowed to do so.