When I launched the development of the GNU system I explicitly said the purpose of developing this system is so we can use our computers and have freedom thus if you use some other free system instead but you have freedom then it's a success. It's not popularity for our code but it's success for our goal.
Harshness to me is giving somebody false hopes and not following through. That’s harsh. Telling some guy or some girl who’ve got zero talent that they have zero talent actually is a kindness.