Re: [edlug] Stallman's talk

[Justin B Rye <edlug@xxx.xxx.xxx>]

> 1: Assuming that people are fully aware of the issues, are fully aware 
> of the implications of their choices, shouldn't people be free to choose 
> non-free software? That, to my mind, is a basic freedom.

Likewise, shouldn't they be free to run plantations on slave labour?
(Ridiculous, yes; but the writers of the US constitution would
indeed have said "That, to my mind, is a basic freedom").  RMS makes
the case that regardless of how convenient it may be, giving your
support to non-free software licensing is unethical, because its
whole function is to restrict the liberty of others.

> Similarly, to 
> write and develop non-free software? IMHO, there's something essentially 
> contradictory in his message that Free Software is innately better than 
> proprietary software, and that you shouldn't develop software along 
> proprietary models. It's like suggesting that you should codeify and 
> enforce Darwinism.

This sounds like a rather weird version of Darwinism.  Who said it
was about survival of the most ethical or desirable, or most
anything apart from most successful at getting replicated? 
 
> 2: It's completely throwing the baby out with the bathwater and frankly 
> immoral to suggest to a guy who works for a charity that he shouldn't 
> work for that charity because they happen to use Microsoft Windows.

They're taking money from the public and handing it over to Bill
Gates, and you don't see a problem?  Or you don't think people
should work towards fixing it?  Withdrawing his labour would be a
last resort, sure... though if organisations give technical staff no
other means of input into technical policy, shouldn't we be making a 
fuss about that too?

He may end up choosing the lesser evil, but no evil at all would
still be preferable, and there's nothing wrong with reminding him of
that.  You'd be in a better position to claim you didn't need
reminding if you hadn't started with pararaph 1.

> We have to live in the real world and make a crust - we can't all be
> Richard Stallman and make a good living out of being poor and preaching 
> about Free Software.

Now imagine relocating this argument in a slave economy.  RMS is an
absolutist in his abolitionism, but maybe that's because he's right!

> Furthermore, suggesting that a Free Software 
> advocate can't work for a company that uses proprietary products is like 
> telling a priest that they can't work with sinners. It only compounds 
> the problem.

Any priest who doesn't believe there are things he shouldn't do is
in the wrong line of work.

> 3: He shouldn't have been completely speechless about trends in hardware 
> and lock-in. That's a very, very important issue, and I don't think you 
> claim that you have much to say about the future and direction of 
> computing generally without having a stance on that issue.

What is it about his stance towards proprietary lock-in that's
unclear?

> But - you can't fault the guy, he does what it says on the tin. Just 
> like the development model he hates - take it or leave it, but you can't 
> change it.

Ah, but you can replace it.
-- 
JBR
Ankh kak! (Ancient Egyptian blessing)
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