🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <eZ9FgB20w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (From A to B) writes:
>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.

False.  The FSF approach is #2, and to some extent, #3 (although I
suspect that you'd like to argue that they should be more diplomatic
and call people fewer names, they are engaged in persuasion).  The FSF
has not attempted to pass laws to make software hoarding illegal.  All
they've done is made damn SURE not to give them any assistance, by
forbidding people who don't agree with them from making derivative works
from FSF code. 

What you're advocating is that they should engage in #4: actively aid
people who oppose their aims by letting them turn FSF software into
commercial products: i.e. actively assist those who are fundamentally
opposed to their philosophy.

>People like myself often look at the whole thing with a certain degree of
>bemusement.

No, you don't.  People who look at the whole thing with a certain degree
of bemusement don't feel compelled to write a dozen articles a day for
months on end.  Your actions reveal that this is a crusade to you, based
on the sheer amount of time and effort that you put into it.  You will now,
no doubt, compose an individual followup to each posting everyone who
disagrees with you has made, continuing your net.logorrhea until everyone
else is exhausted and then proclaiming victory.

>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.

I agree with this statement, but I think that YOU don't.  If you did,
you'd have no objection to FSF, which is only attempting to control how
its own code is used.  My opinion: anyone has the right to restrict
distribution of a program that person has written entirely from scratch
by himself or herself; it's also OK to include code by others in this
product if the authors have given explicit permission.  Get it, Mathew:
FSF has not given this permission.

--
Joe Buck	jbuck@ohm.berkeley.edu