🚀 go-pugleaf

I'm told that people have been arguing that it is somehow unfair to
boycott Apple and Lotus without boycotting (nearly) the entire
computer industry at the same time.  I'd like to explain some
philosophical errors in this line of reasoning.

* This position presupposes that all the companies in the industry are
equally bad--even though they have done a wide variety of different things.

Since people may differ on just how bad a particular action may be, it
is possible that a particular person might consider (for example) IBM
and Apple to be equally bad.  This disagreement is not an argument
against my judgement of these actions, any more than it is an argument
against the other person's judgement.

The "unfairness" argument requires more than just disagreement with a
particular evaluation of how bad certain actions are.  It requries the
claim that any distinction is necessarily wrong.

Perhaps one can consistently believe that claim, but I don't think
many of the readers actually do.  Most of us do distinguish degrees of
wrongdoing.  In fact, the failure to make such a distinction is
generally considered the mark of an extremist.

As a practical matter, for those who want to solve a real-life
problem, it is often wise to distinguish between offenses of different
severity, and to pick a few of the worst offenders as targets to
object to first.

Clearly, the few companies that have actually sued are worse than the
multitude who might perhaps do so.  Clearly, those few who have look
and feel lawsuits and patents are worse than the multitude who have
only patents.  So it seems to me that our boycott actually is pretty
fair.

* However, even if our boycott were completely unfair, there would be
nothing wrong with that.  The idea that our political actions should
be "consistent" or "fair" in the first place is based on a
misunderstanding--on the idea that the boycott is a punishment.
Actually it is a weapon.  Certainly, it should not be used against
people who have done nothing to deserve it; otherwise it would be
unethical.  But there is no reason to use it "fairly" when various
parties are all "deserving".

To make an analogy, in World War II, the US did not attack the Axis
forces on all fronts in every attack.  Instead, the US army attacked
wherever seemed advantageous.  This was perhaps "unfair" to the
particular Axis soldiers who were attacked on any given day, but as
enemies they weren't entitled to fairness.

Likewise, if many companies are more or less deserving of our
condemnation, they have lost any claim to fair treatment.  The most
they can claim is that we should not treat them in a way that exceeds
what their wrongs justify.

The comparison of Apple, IBM, and so on with students who give wrong
answers on a test is a good example with which to see why a boycott is
not punishment.  Punishments are inflicted by the strong on the weak.
Boycotts are a weapon for the weak against the strong.

Fairness is a requirement we place on the strong--not on the weak.
For example, it makes sense to require the instructor to treat the
students fairly, because the instructor has great power over the
students.  If the government were considering the look and feel
prepetrators, then perhaps its power would exceed that of the
companies.  (Though I'm not sure of this!)  If so, there would be good
reason to require the government to be fair.

However, we programmers and users can hardly be said to have this sort
of power over IBM, Apple, or even Lotus.  There is no obligation for
the weak to treat strong aggressors "fairly" while trying to protect
themselves.  They have to fight in whatever way they can.

There is room for a value judgement here, on which people may
disagree.  If you think that "unfair" behavior by the FSF is a more
serious problem than menace from Apple *or* IBM, you are entitled to
your opinion.

But I hope most of you don't share that opinion, and will join
me in using all the weapons that we can conveniently use.