For years, RMS and other early GNU contributors wrote free software tools using proprietary software tools on proprietary kernels. Even today, free software developers will use proprietary software - closed GPU drivers, Coverity - if it doesn't affect the license of their project.
Matthew's observation, which is basically correct in my experience, is that the shift to personal portable computing has created a similar situation for everything other than software development. Even if I care about free software, everything else I need to do with a computer - which is basically everything - becomes x% more difficult. Writing, composing, A/V editing, etc. - there's no contest. If you want to make free culture, proprietary tools will help do it orders of magnitude more effectively. Similarly for my leisure time, reading books, watching films, playing games.
Even many free software software tools are deal with on Mac OS X than GNU/Linux desktops. e.g. I have Automator tools that call out to Emacs to get various Emacs-specific edit operations in every text field in OS X. There is no GNU/Linux equivalent, except the much more time-consuming prospect of either inventing an Automator equivalent and praying it actually gets into all the toolkits before the next CADT flash, or rewriting everything I do in Elisp - which OK, but then I can't do any of the other things I need or want to do.
The only thing that got us over this hump before was the combination of a few people's excellence as programmers and their complete unreasonableness. Today's software is immeasurably more complex; GNU squanders resources on mismanaged projects like IceCat (the browser for your privacy, with dozens of known security holes!); and a poor economic climate means long-term unreasonableness is more physically dangerous than ever. I don't see a good way through.
Re: Ideals no more
Matthew's observation, which is basically correct in my experience, is that the shift to personal portable computing has created a similar situation for everything other than software development. Even if I care about free software, everything else I need to do with a computer - which is basically everything - becomes x% more difficult. Writing, composing, A/V editing, etc. - there's no contest. If you want to make free culture, proprietary tools will help do it orders of magnitude more effectively. Similarly for my leisure time, reading books, watching films, playing games.
Even many free software software tools are deal with on Mac OS X than GNU/Linux desktops. e.g. I have Automator tools that call out to Emacs to get various Emacs-specific edit operations in every text field in OS X. There is no GNU/Linux equivalent, except the much more time-consuming prospect of either inventing an Automator equivalent and praying it actually gets into all the toolkits before the next CADT flash, or rewriting everything I do in Elisp - which OK, but then I can't do any of the other things I need or want to do.
The only thing that got us over this hump before was the combination of a few people's excellence as programmers and their complete unreasonableness. Today's software is immeasurably more complex; GNU squanders resources on mismanaged projects like IceCat (the browser for your privacy, with dozens of known security holes!); and a poor economic climate means long-term unreasonableness is more physically dangerous than ever. I don't see a good way through.