On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 16:30 +0100, David Kastrup wrote:
> Chris Cannam <cannam@email-addr-hidden-day-breakfast.com> writes:
>
> > An irony of both open source and free software is that they make it
> > easy to forget that all software is almost always written by decent
> > humans -- for example, by implying that proprietary software
> > developers are less moral and so less significant. If my free
> > software work puts a company or its developers out of work, then
> > that's a problem for my conscience. It's not a victory for free
> > software. And it's not "just business", because it's not business.
> > I will have damaged people's livelihoods, for fun.
>
> That particular argument does not hold water at all, sorry. Following
> your kind of logic, people caring for peace on Earth are damaging the
> livelihoods of weapon producers, decent people mostly, and that merely
> for their selfish desire of a world worth living in.
No, this is a bunch of BS. You're equating software producers with
weapon producers, who you're equating with evil (and, implicitly, weapon
users, a fact which I find personally insulting). That's all wrong, but
the salient point is that Chris stipulated that proprietary software
producers *aren't* evil! The only way they can be evil is if you
stipulate a moral code which dictates as much.
They're not torturing babies, for chrissakes.
> If their livelihoods get tougher because of a world where work is
> shared and exchanged between consenting and cooperating humans, so
> much the better. It is a byproduct one can live with.
Yeah, ever heard of capitalism? Or do you have a bone to pick with
that, too?
Seriously, there are better things to do than demonize proprietary
software producers. Go kill a terrorist if you need somebody to beat up
on, at least you'll be making the world a better place in the process.
Last I checked, Microsoft wasn't bombing any subways.
-- Pete Bessman http://gazuga.net "So this baby seal walks into a club."Received on Sun Feb 26 20:17:56 2006
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