Isn't it absurd that someone would consider ignoring all of those points about technical details and user experience of free software because of license issues with other "free" software?

As a member of the illumos community, I long ago turned the question around: given ZFS, DTrace, Zones, and the rest, all available in a free (as in speech) operating system, why would I use a different system that prohibits incorporating all this valuable free software?

> Isn't it absurd that someone would consider ignoring all of those points about technical details and user experience of free software because of license issues with other "free" software?

It depends on perspective. I think it's ridiculous that someone would even put out a whole distro that's free and useful, and I am really grateful for that.

> why would I use a different system that prohibits incorporating all this valuable free software?

In my case it's simple: I don't have the time or energy to put out a distro that conforms to everything that I want.