🚀 go-pugleaf

matt@oddjob.uchicago.edu (Matt Crawford) writes:
> mathew@mantis (Lieutenant 030) writes:
> ) So why the hell did you buy DEC stuff then?  If DEC took something unfairly
> ) and restricted it, surely the appropriate response is to tell DEC to go
> ) to hell, NOT to try and force DEC to do things the way you think they ought
> ) to be done.
> 
> That doesn't follow at all.  Will you explain your reasoning?

Yup.  There's this thing called "diversity of opinion".  I know you'd love
it if Richard Stallman was Supreme Ruler of the Universe and everybody did
everything the way RMS told them to, but practically speaking that isn't
going to happen.

There are always going to be people who don't do things the way you think
they should be done.  There are several ways you can deal with this:
1. Try to pass laws to make them do things your way.
2. Let them do things their way, but don't give them any assistance.
3. Tolerate opinions which differ to your own.  Give people the freedom
   to make their own decisions, and rely on persuasion to entice them or 
   educate them into doing things your way.

The FSF approach is #1.  Rather than saying "Look what freely-available
software has done for you.  Here's why you should keep the software 
freely-available..." they resort to restrictive licenses, manifestos and
propaganda about "evil software hoarders".

What I'm suggesting above is #2. If I'd been more ambitious, I would 
have advocated #3.

The reason #1 doesn't work is that it can't possibly work if everyone does
it.  In fact, many people support the FSF because they don't like the way
commercial software companies use tactic #1 to force software licenses
onto people and stop people getting source code.  Curiously, this doesn't
stop those FSF supporters from using exactly the same strongarm tactics
themselves.

People like myself often look at the whole thing with a certain degree of
bemusement.  Currently the political system in this country seems to be
such that I can either have a right-wing government with absolute power,
or a left-wing government with absolute power.  I don't want either.  I
want people to make their own decisions, make their own choices, try to
educate and persuade those they disagree with, and come to a compromise.

Similarly with software.  The big boys want to give absolute power to
corporations like IBM, by using software patents.  They want to force all
software to be expensive.  The FSF supporters want to give absolute power
to the FSF.  They want to force all software to be "free".  I don't want
either extreme.  I want an organization which will encourage free software
by persuading people to release stuff freely, not by forcing them to do
so if they want to use existing "free" stuff.

I don't think that either commercial or "free" distribution systems
are the answer to every problem.  I think that there's a place for both.
Let the customer decide which is best.

>                                                        You can
> say something more compelling than "surely", I hope ...

Well, if you don't find the above more compelling than "surely", I can only
hope that one day you will.  Perhaps when you've been on the receiving end
of someone exercising absolutist policies.


mathew

-- 
Hail Eris! / "Our whole economy's based on fear and death; how long can we get
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CD / Just another would-be Mac owner put off by Apple's monopolistic practices