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From: chrisv on 1 Jul 2010 10:17
chrisv wrote:

>Aragorn wrote:
>>
>>Just like these guys would want to form a committee on what operating
>>systems the rest of the world may or may not use, I suppose. It is
>>quite clear to me that these people believe that their freedom gives
>>them the right to invade or take away the freedom of others. And that
>>would be *so* in line with Microsoft's corporate philosophy, wouldn't
>>it be?
>
>That was my point, yes. They all attack the freedom and choice that
>Linux users have, as if it's a bad thing, and we are bad people for
>wanting it.

What's more (get this), according to "Hadron", we are hypocritical
"morons" because we want "freedom" but think that GPL-like terms and
obligations are a good thing!

It seems that it should be "all or nothing", according to "Hadron" -
either lock it up tight so that no one can benefit from the power and
efficiency of FOSS, or give it away no strings attached so that the
proprietary software companies can have their way with it.

Of course, the *fact* is that "all or nothing" would mean the *death*
of the open-source alternative. Open-source software would have
*zero* chance of competing with closed-source, if the closed-source
people could simply take and use whatever the open-source people do
and incorporate it into their closed-source products. *Obviously*

Indeed, knowing what we do today, how many people would write and
release quality open-source software, knowing full-well that Micro$oft
and others could simply take their code and use it in their for-profit
products without paying them a cent? Not bloody many. *Obviously*

But, according to "Hadron", we're moronic for liking the GPL. We're
ridiculous hypocrites because we want *limits* to "freedom". We're
unreasonable "GPL morons" for liking and using a license that allows
FOSS to flourish, rather than die.

Right, "Hadron"?

From: Aragorn on 1 Jul 2010 12:55
On Thursday 01 July 2010 16:17 in alt.os.linux, somebody identifying as
chrisv wrote...

> chrisv wrote:
>
>> Aragorn wrote:
>>
>>> Just like these guys would want to form a committee on what
>>> operating systems the rest of the world may or may not use, I
>>> suppose. It is quite clear to me that these people believe that
>>> their freedom gives them the right to invade or take away the
>>> freedom of others. And that would be *so* in line with Microsoft's
>>> corporate philosophy, wouldn't it be?
>>
>> That was my point, yes. They all attack the freedom and choice that
>> Linux users have, as if it's a bad thing, and we are bad people for
>> wanting it.
>
> What's more (get this), according to "Hadron", we are hypocritical
> "morons" because we want "freedom" but think that GPL-like terms and
> obligations are a good thing!

Well, to be honest, a lot of people in the FOSS community also feel that
the GPL is too "restrictive" - even the Free Software Foundation itself
acknowledges this - and therefore prefer another Free Software license.
But I will get back to this a little farther down.

> It seems that it should be "all or nothing", according to "Hadron" -
> either lock it up tight so that no one can benefit from the power and
> efficiency of FOSS, or give it away no strings attached so that the
> proprietary software companies can have their way with it.

Some Free Software licenses do allow for this, not that I personally
support that vantage.

> Of course, the *fact* is that "all or nothing" would mean the *death*
> of the open-source alternative. Open-source software would have
> *zero* chance of competing with closed-source, if the closed-source
> people could simply take and use whatever the open-source people do
> and incorporate it into their closed-source products. *Obviously*
>
> Indeed, knowing what we do today, how many people would write and
> release quality open-source software, knowing full-well that Micro$oft
> and others could simply take their code and use it in their for-profit
> products without paying them a cent? Not bloody many. *Obviously*

Well, there you have it... Take FreeBSD for instance. The BSD license
allows for re-use of the Free Software code in proprietary software,
and this has benefited both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Jobs because OS
X is for most part built upon FreeBSD and the Mach microkernel (coupled
to another, proprietary kernelspace component called XNU), and Gates
because Microsoft did not have its own TCP/IP stack and has
incorporated the BSD TCP/IP stack in Windows instead.

Many people therefore call the GPL too restrictive - the
word "restrictive" is also literally used as such by the FSF - but
indeed, in order to promote fairness and justice, the GPL *has* to
impose the restrictions it does. It's the only way to guarantee that
everyone's freedom is respected and that nobody from the proprietary
world would be abusing the work done by others.

Therefore, of all the Free Software licenses in existence, I personally
prefer the GNU GPL.

> But, according to "Hadron", we're moronic for liking the GPL. We're
> ridiculous hypocrites because we want *limits* to "freedom". We're
> unreasonable "GPL morons" for liking and using a license that allows
> FOSS to flourish, rather than die.

Well, there is this little thing about freedom which too many people
either overlook are deliberately choose to ignore, and that is that
one's freedom ends where another's freedom begins. That's what freedom
means.

In my humble opinion, if one has the freedom to invade on another man's
freedom, then this is not freedom anymore, but chaos and predation. A
simple example is that according to the laws of civilized countries,
someone who is free still does not have the right to kill another human
being just because he would like to.

Nobody lives in a vacuum. We all live on this planet together, and if
we want to create some equilibrium, some harmony, then people will have
to learn to respect eachother. And that includes that there must be
restrictions to one's freedom to do as one pleases.

As an interesting sidenote to all of the above, there was a paper
released not too long ago, which stated that if business corporations
were judged in a court of law upon their behavior in the exact same
manner as human beings would be, then each and every one of them would
classify as a psychopath.

Well, I guess we only need to look at Microsoft, or - currently of a
bigger threat level to the environment - British Petroleum. One of the
engineers who made it off of the drilling platform alive - he jumped
off of the rig, straight into the ocean water - stated that there was a
security warning from the system and that one of the BP corporate execs
ordered them to ignore it and continue drilling nevertheless. To me
that's a clear sign of psychopathy.

Of course, all of this abuse is made possible with a lot of legal
leverage because of the financial-economic system. The Western world
still doesn't seem to realize it, but it is impossible to have economic
growth anywhere without that there is economic loss elsewhere. But
this elsewhere is then morally relegated to some obscure and
out-of-focus locaton in the backs of our minds. "As long as everything
goes fine for us over here, right?"

This is one of the reasons why I support a resource-based economy
instead of a monetary economy, and I had been thinking along those
lines for many years already even before I ever saw the GPL. This is
what attracted me in the GPL; it was the software licensing version of
my political-economical view, and it showed me that I was apparently
not the only one who sought to introduce some fairness in the
corporately controlled financial-economic society model.

On the other hand, I fully do understand that not everyone will be
served by the GPL or by a resource-based economy. After all, look at
who's controlling society. And they are in control because they wanted
to be in control and because we allowed them to take control.

Of course, this debate could go on for hours more, because everything is
related and it all amounts to matters of philosophy way beyond the
scope of this thread, even if it *did* start off as a troll thread.

But you get my point. ;-)

--
*Aragorn*
(registered GNU/Linux user #223157)
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