From kragen@dnaco.net Sun Sep 13 11:25:48 1998 Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1998 11:25:46 -0400 (EDT) From: Kragen To: "Bradley M. Kuhn" cc: clug-user@clug.org Subject: Re: some defense of the ethics of free software (was Re: free solaris) In-Reply-To: <19980912194729.A2706@ebb.org> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Keywords: X-UID: 1874 Status: O X-Status: On Sat, 12 Sep 1998, Bradley M. Kuhn wrote: > Here is where Jeff and I disagree: Jeff believes that the freedoms of the > creator are more important than the freedoms of the user. In contrast, I > argue that the freedoms of the user are more important than the the freedom > of the creator. Why? Because the only additional benefit (like with > slavery) that the creator of *proprietary* software gets is the ability to > horde money. > > I don't think hoarding money is something our society should promote. > However, if the creator makes his/her software into free software, then they > still get some money (though not as much), and then everyone else in the > world gets their freedoms back. I think these freedoms are more important > then the creators freedoms to horde money. Well, there's also the ability to extort enough money from users to make a living. This is different from hoarding money, IMHO, and it's what the copyright laws are intended to promote. > Now, I do *not* support mucking with the laws of our country to enforce this > idea. At heart, I am actually an anarchist---I believe that we should live > in a society where people do good because they want to, not where they are > forced to. So you think we should live in a society where we have laws that specifically offer the use of state force to enforce copyright, and hope that people are willing to not use them? That doesn't sound terribly anarchistic to me. :) > The free software movement is about ethics, and as such, it only effects the > proprietary world indirectly. I certainly hope that it doesn't effect the proprietary world, directly or indirectly. I would like it to effect the undoing of the proprietary world. (This is an example of a silly grammar flame that doesn't do any good, but only creates division.) BTW, with the automotive analogy: when automatic fabrication becomes commonplace, physical objects will become a lot more like software. We'd better find a good way to deal with software-like things, and as far as I can tell, free software is the only sane way to do that yet. If we can't find a good way to deal with software-like things, human life will become an unimaginably horrible nightmare of slavery. Kragen -- Kragen Sitaker The sages do not believe that making no mistakes is a blessing. They believe, rather, that the great virtue of man lies in his ability to correct his mistakes and continually make a new man of himself. -- Wang Yang-Ming