🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Feb10.065321.24815@uunet.uu.net> kyle@uunet.uu.net (Kyle Jones) writes:
> > What ever happened to the concept of compromise?
>
>Hoarding free software is anathema to the FSF.  There can be no
>compromise.
I assume you mean "Hoarding any software..."

> > Is the world really destined to be run by extremists who
> > *know* they are right?
>
>It already is.  Only when the situation reaches the point where
>both sides see that further conflict is pointless, will there be
>compromise.

I find that very doubtful.  Conflict tends to change the minds
of those in the middle, not those at the extremes.

> > The world is not black and white.  It's not full of absolutes.
> > And extremism does nothing but piss people off.
>
>The FSF has to deal with the cold realities of the world.  It
>really makes little difference how much software you've given
>away.  Software vendors have shown that they can't be trusted to
>take free software and modify it and leave it free.  Thus the
>necessity of the GPL.  The fact that you give away code doesn't
>change that one bit.  You can't be trusted.  You can't be
>trusted.  I can't be trusted.  Money talks.  What other option is
>there other than the "extreme" one, to order to protect the
>freedom of the software?

I find a system that is based on mistrust abhorrent.  I started
out beliving that the FSF had great goals but wasn't practical.
You are convicining me that it's worse than that - that their
methods are, by my standards at least, immoral.  You can't
build a system based on the assumption that you can't trust
your citizens.  In fact the net result is often worse than
if you hadn't tried.  Look at the conflicts in Eastern Europe.

>get a proprietary program?  I don't see inflexibility and
>extremism in the GPL, I see equity.

I see equity in the concept that all software should be
free (and food, and rent, and healt care  and...).  But I'm
not arguing with the goals - just the method.  The GPL is not
equitable in itself - it's a restrictive copyright designed
to force people to be equitable.  I don't believe that you
can build a moral society on an immoral base, and I don't
believe that the end justifies the means.


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I'm not sure which upsets me more: that people are so unwilling to accept
responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate
everyone else's.