🚀 go-pugleaf

kaleb@thyme.jpl.nasa.gov (Kaleb Keithley) writes in
                                   <1991Apr30.011818.855@thyme.jpl.nasa.gov>:
>                               I sense a double set of standards when 
>you say "boycott company X to punish them for their transgressions, but 
>not company Y, because their sins weren't *quite* as bad."

Do you sense "a double set of standards" when the legal system says "Give
this man the death penalty for murder, but don't execute this shoplifter
because his crime wasn't quite as bad"?

What you seem to be espousing is a system where all crimes and sins are
subject to the same punishment; moral absolutism. I think a few moments'
consideration should persuade you that such a system is ridiculous.

>I think that your definition of logical is anyone who agrees with you,
>and illogical is anyone who doesn't see eye to eye with you.

Come on, now; that's just a cheap insult.

>>The first flaw in this line of argument is that the decision of who
>>to boycott is a tactical one.  It is never valid to argue that "if
>>you boycott X, you should also boycott Y".
>
>I don't see it as an X-Y relationship.  If X commits a foul, boycott
>X, if Y fouls, punish Y.

Right. But supposing you don't have the resources to boycott or punish both X
and Y?  Surely you aren't suggesting that Apple should not be boycotted
simply because there is no boycott of AT&T?

An analogous statement would be to argue that criminals should not be
sentenced because we can't catch and convict *every* criminal.

>              I merely stated that there were other sinners who are, 
>perhaps, deserving of some heat.

Right. If that's really all you're saying, then fine. The response is "We
realise this, but we do not have the resources to target all of them. We have
therefore chosen to target a few who are being particularly obnoxious."

[ I use "we" to mean "those of us who take notice of the boycott"; I'm not
  a member of the FSF (yet) ]

>>Another flaw is that this argument assumes that all obnoxious
>>activities are equally bad.  It is based on seeing the world as pure
>>black and white, with no gray.  I don't see the world that way.
>
>Is that an implication that you think I only see things in terms of
>black and white?  Let's not get personal here, okay?

You yourself resorted to personal insult earlier in the item, saying
"I think that your definition of logical is anyone who agrees with you,
 and illogical is anyone who doesn't see eye to eye with you."

You yourself talked in terms of black and white when you said
"I sense a double set of standards when you say "boycott company X to punish
 them for their transgressions, but not company Y, because their sins weren't
 *quite* as bad."

>>When Microsoft fails to document MS-DOG properly, that may be
>>unfriendly, but it isn't a terribile (sic) threat.  
>
>The FTC doesn't seem to see it that way.

That's not precisely true. The argument against Microsoft is that they not
only failed to document features of A Mess DOS, but that they then took
advantage of those features in order to boost their other products.

The lack of documentation is not a sin of itself.

>>Anybody can avoid being inconvenienced, simply by not dealing with MS-DOG.
>
>That's like saying "stop the world, I want to get off."  You can no more 
>get off the world than you can avoid using MS-DOS.

That's quite simply not true. Name any task which you can perform using
MS-DOS which you cannot perform as easily using some other computer system,
*apart from* running MS-DOS programs.

>(This is a digression, you may skip over it if you wish.  BTW, in the 
>under $1000 category, Intel hardware that is, what OS would you suggest?

How about DR-DOS?
  
>And how about for Motorola hardware?

Atari GEMDOS or the Amiga OS.

>                                  And do you think it's appropriate 
>for a secretary who types memos, or a five year old child to learn 
>something as complicated as UNIX or VMS?

For a secretary typing memos, the only difference between UNIX and MS-DOS
will be that it is necessary to log in. After that, the secretary starts up
his copy of Emacs and types memos. File copying and other similar operations
are just like A Mess DOS.

And, of course, the dangerous commands like rm can be replaced by safer
aliases or shell scripts. My standard practice is to alias rm so that it
moves files to a wastebasket directory, and only *really* deletes them when I
log out.

>Who's Apple suing, besides Microsoft?

They've already successfully killed DR's GEM desktop system.

>    I haven't heard that Apple's doing anything against the MIT X Window 
>System.  Nor are they suing Amiga or Atari, who also have window systems.  

They only have limited resources. X isn't competing with the Mac. Neither
Amiga nor ST have anything like the Mac's market share. Windows does.
Therefore they go after Windows first. Besides, they've already crippled the
ST, which runs GEM.

You can bet that if they manage to kill Windows like they killed GEM, Motif
or AmigaDOS will be next.

>>The GNU system must have all the features users expect in a system,
>>including a desktop, in order to succeed.  If any important component
>>is made illegal, the GNU project fails, and all the work done on it
>>becomes a waste.
>
>I thought you didn't see things in terms of black and white?  But here 
>you say that if GNU doesn't have a desktop environment, then everything 
>FSF does, and all that GNU stands for will have been for nought.

There are a lot of people, such as myself, who will not use a computer unless
it has a windowing environment. For such people, GNU will be useless if it
can't have a desktop and windows. If such people are in the majority, and I
think that they are, then GNU as a whole will fail.


mathew

-- 
mathew - mathew@mantis.co.uk or mcsun!ukc!ibmpcug!mantis!mathew