Z:gnu-www-ja-rms-nyu-2001-transcript--bf962a-Eventually, people noted this/en

Eventually, people noted this phenomenon. You see, in the 1980's a lot of us thought that maybe free software wouldn't be as good as the non-free software, because we wouldn't have as much money to pay people. And, of course, people like me, who value freedom and community said, &ldquo;Well, we'll use the free software anyway.&rdquo; It's worth making a little sacrifice in some mere technical convenience to have freedom. But what people began to note, around 1990 was that our software was actually better. It was more powerful, and more reliable, than the proprietary alternatives.