My only complaint about Python

[Paul Boddie]

"Ben Last" <ben at benlast.com> wrote in message news:<mailman.2100.1093081354.5135.python-list at python.org>...
> 
> What's needed (in my extremely humble opinion) is a way to build what I need
> to, using a compiler suite that I can go and get without having to spend any
> money.  Philosophy is fine, but I dislike having an FSF agenda pushed on me
> as much as I dislike a Redmond agenda.  I just want to get on with my job
> (or in this case, pursue my own interests).

Yes, I'm sure the FSF is right up there with Microsoft, considered
just as notorious for its anticompetitive business practices, and I'm
sure we've all found it really hard to buy PC systems without GNU
software pre-installed. When people talk about the FSF agenda being
pushed on them, you'd think they'd been asked to stare down Richard
Stallman in some kind of "reality TV" contest whilst
exotically-dressed kernel hackers scream for the humiliation of the
loser.

Perhaps you'd be equally enthusiastic for Python if it were made
available in binary form at the discretion of Guido and his closest
associates, but I'd imagine that by now in its history, if that had
been so, it would be as popular as the various neat-but-proprietary
languages of the early 1990s whose names only trigger the memories of
those who could remember them when seen on old and archived Web sites.

Paul