The first thing many sysadmins do on other Unix variants is install the GNU userland for Unix. Fortunately, more and more commercial Unix variants are making this readily available for their platform. The GNU unix environment is so much better now that most Unix vendors do not even try to provide a decent proprietary environment.
I wonder if GoldenEagle is using GNU components on Solaris? He probably is and doesn't even realize it.
Probably. There is another aspect to this.
The number of developers for an OS directly contributes to the popularity and success of that OS. You've heard Ballmer say it, "Developers! Developers! Developers!" The need for developers is why Apple has given away their development tool, and so does Microsoft now (and the .NET compiler was always free).
Unix went closed very soon after it became popular. After that, compilers were proprietary and expensive. Who knows how much less UNIX would have grown with such a small developer pool.
Then comes Stallman. He developed GCC, a free compiler for UNIX. Now everybody could program for UNIX, and the developer base grew, and with it the OS.
GE, you may think Stallman is hurting UNIX, but UNIX got as far as it did partially thanks to him in the first place.