🚀 go-pugleaf

pst@Shockwave.COM (Paul Traina) writes:
> You forgot:                                     boycott of innocent USERS
>                                                 closed-mindedness due to
>                                                   rabid desire to be
>                                                   politically correct at
>                                                   at the expense of primary
>                                                   goal (producing software)
>                                                 censorship
>                                                 double standards

You're statments do not reflect any kind of reality other than your
own misguided thoughts.  

1) People who use MacIntoshes are not "innocent USERS" - they directly
   support a company who is activily litigating in an attempt (it
   seems) to increase their market share (or possibly drive their
   competitors out of business).  There's an old saying that "If
   you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem."  If
   you subscribe to this idea, and it seems that you don't, then no
   one is "innocent" - at best, they are guilty of *not having thought
   the issues through* - which is why the boycott exists - so that
   people will think "Hey, my MAC is pretty cool, but it would be so
   much cooler if I had GNUbiffboff on it - why doesn't it exist for
   my computer?"

2) Spurious characterizations about close mindedness and political
   correctness are completely in-appropriate.  Whatever your
   definition of "politically correct", I'm sure that I violate it (at
   least once - most likely many times).  

   Imagine the situation this way:

   The FSF produces good, quality software and makes it work on every
   machine except MS-DOS machines and Macs (MS-DOS because it's such a
   kludge that it would set the GNU project behind YEARS to try to
   develop for it, Macs because of the boycott) - in a few years time,
   people are running HERD on their 386 boxen, so MS-DOS becomes more
   and more rare - leaving everyone with the ability to run GNU
   software except people who own Macs.  Sounds unfair to those
   millions of Mac users, right?

   Now, imagine this:

   Apple continues litigation - Microsoft has infringed their license
   and are found guilty and have to pay damages.  However, the law
   being what it is, judges see this as upholding the "general right
   to copyright look-and-feel of computer software".  The next few
   years pass without incident.  Apple starts to slip in the
   competition to put out good machines with good software.  They
   decide they need a trump card to play.  They sue the authors of the
   Idraw software for "look-and-feel" infringement.  They win - idraw
   is history.  People take this seriously and develop better ways to
   interact with users - they stop supporting windowing systems and
   start putting all their effort into developing foobarbang, which
   they will not license to Apple - result, everyone else uses better
   software except those who own Apples.  Sounds unfair to those
   millions of Mac users, right?

   Guess who's to blame in both situations?

   Apple.

   If you think that people should provide software to all platforms
   without reflecting on how those companies are going to affect the
   future of the developers, then you've a very, very strange notion
   of "fair".

3) I've never noticed any "censorship" - I've noticed this claim once
   or twice - but I've never seen it substantiated.

4) Double-standards are prevelant throughout the industry - why should
   the FSF be held up to a different standard?  Also, there isn't a
   real double-standard - only Apple (and Lotus?) have performed an
   action which has a direct bearing on the FSF's GNU project -
   patenting is *not* a threat as long as the patents aren't enforced.
   Also, note that applying the boycott as an "all-or-nothing"
   situation, as you seem to want it to be, results in the FSF doing
   what Donald Knuth does.  Writing software for machines that don't
   exist! (ie., machines that they aren't boycotting)

> Apple has become a symbol of the evil empire to the FSF.  I don't deal
> with symbols,  I deal with reality.  I still stand behind my words at
> the GNU BOF 3 years ago.  Hurting people to strengthen an ideal is
> evil.  As evil as using lawyers to try to gain a competitive advantage
> over your peers.

  If you *really* think that you "don't deal with symbols", I suggest
  that you spend less time reading the gnu.heirarchy and pick up some
  books on cognitive psychology.  In fact, you deal with little else
  other than symbols.  "reality" is as you percieve it to be - there
  is a "consensus reality" that we can agree on, but it *NECESSARILY*
  includes us each giving up a portion of our personal "reality".

  No one is hurting Mac users.  No one *would* hurt Mac users to
  strengthen an ideal.  To live up to an ideal, perhaps, since that
  would be construed as survival and hurting people for survival is
  sometimes necessary.  It is neither evil nor good - it is merely
  your perceptions which give it a moral value.

  Not developing Mac software is the *right* of the FSF - it may be
  childish, immature, short-sighted, narrow-minded, silly, idiotic and
  futile or clever, ingenious, creative, useful and fun.  It matters
  very little, really how you classify it.

  I think that GNU tools should *not* be supported on MACs, just for
  the same reason they are not supported on MS-DOS machines.  To do
  so would simply slow down the project, which is to produce a
  UNIX-LIKE (not MAC-LIKE or DOS-LIKE) system for free distribution.
  
  Let MAC-OS and MS-DOS users port the GNU software to their machines
  - OSF/1 will be distributed in about a year, in all likelyhood and
  it's important that the HERD get out of the corral in a similar
  amount of time.

  If we end up waiting for the HERD to catch up to us who don't use
  386 based machines, AND we run out of other things to do, then, it
  would be time to recondiser support for MS-DOS and MAC-OS machines. 

> Why not boycott Digital and IBM?  Both companies are actively involved
> in generating as many patents as possible to use as trading chips for
> suits and countersuits against others in industry?  How do I know
> this?  I work for Digital's Western Research Lab and recently fought
> against the system.

  This is addressed in almost every article by people who support the
  FSF and/or the LPF - because there is no *ACTIVE LITIGATION* - we're
  (LPF)	working on getting the patent system changed so that there
  will *never be* any.

> The fight against Apple is not worth the collateral dammage.  People
> are going religious over this thing and it's disgusting.

  What collateral damage?  

  Look at who uses Macs....

  Look at who uses MS-DOS machines....

  Now, tell me that they're really being hurt because they aren't
  getting a copy of my echo program (gecho).... dream on.... Though I
  can imagine some usefullness for it on MS-DOS machines, the MAC-OS
  doesn't even have a *shell* - where the hell would they use my
  "gecho" program anyway?

                    Jon "Iain" Boone
                  jb3o+@andrew.cmu.edu