Free software does not seek to restrict how it may be used, or what can be said about it. Proprietary software, instead, uses its licensing agreements to silence its users. Now, of course, there are reasons for this behavior. One could say, for example, that these companies are simply trying to prevent the publication of something like the Mindcraft report that has drawn so much scorn over the last couple of weeks. There's probably some truth to that.
Much bad behavior comes as the result of good intentions.
But, in the end, freedom is more important. This good news should signal the end of one of the more unfortunate code forks we have seen in recent times. It was unfortunate that a code fork was necessary to counteract the stagnation of gcc development and lucky for all of us that doing quality work and being patient paid off for the egcs team, allowing them to meet their original goal of re-integrating with the gcc tree. Whether commercial or free, software development progresses fastest and with the highest quality results when it is done in a process that is fully open to scrutiny and contributions from all sources. This year, for the first time, the ALS is sponsored by Usenix as well as by the Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts, who founded it, and Linux International.