也许你会很奇怪，为什么Gnome为做出这样决定，据Philip Van Hoof说，这是由于Richard Stallman在Gnome基金会的邮件列表上的一封信，关于反对私有软件加入GNOME平台。在邮件列表搜索找到了原件，如下：
On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 8:38 PM, Richard Stallman <rms gnu org> wrote:
The people who work at VmWare also very often posted (and still post)
about their work and appear on Planet GNOME.They should not do this, unless VmWare becomes free software. GNOME
should not provide proprietary software developers with a platform to
present non-free software as a good or legitimate thing.Perhaps the statement of Planet GNOME’s philosophy should be
interpreted differently. It should not invite people to talk about
their proprietary software projects just because they are also GNOME
contributors.
从内容上看，Richard Stallman并非很激进，主张软件自由是他一贯坚持的做法。而Gnome作为GNU/Linux最流行的桌面软件之一，具有广泛的用户群体，如果引入 私有软件开发商加入，Stallman担心软件的自由也将受到了影响。从这方面来看他的担心并非没有道理。
说到Richard Stallman与Gnome基金会，两者在此前就有过矛盾。Gnome项目的联合创始人Miguel de Icaza被Stallman称为是Microsoft的“代言人”，这是因为Miguel de Icaza还有另外一个身份，那就是Mono项目（开源.Net环境）的创始人。在那件事件上De Icaza以“道歉者”的语气回应Stallman：相对于Stallman，我只是恰好从不同的角度来看微软。还建议Stallman从事“恐怖散播”来安排自己的日程。