[CS-FSLUG] GNU believers

[Leon Brooks]

On Fri, 3 Sep 2004 03:10, Aaron Patrick Lehmann wrote:
> I refuse to be held accountable for the actions of others. If this
> exploitation is wrong (which I'm not sure it is), then I'm not the
> one who did it. Sure, I made it possible, by choosing to allow
> derivatives to pick their own liscense, but I didn't force it.

Hokay, now follow t through to its conclusion.

Say you leave a box of spraypaint tins on your letterbox, some flouro, 
some stoveblack. Now along comes a bunch of children, who swiftly egg 
one another into taking the tins and spraying your neighbours' walls 
with them. Are you at fault? There's no law (yet) against leaving 
spray-paint on your letterbox.

Now replace the spraypaint with pistol and box of matching ammo, and 
re-run the simulation. Who's at fault?

> Meanwhile, if I had released under a more restrictive liscense, then
> I would have to accept resposibility for the liscensing scheme of
> derivatives, since I was the one that chose it.

You chose it here, too. BSD is a choice.

> It seems analogous 
> to free will in general.  God has given us, His derivatives, the
> ability to do good or evil.  Some will do good, and others evil.  Is
> He responsible for the evil-doers' actions?

Yes. And so are they. He has done no evil, and yet He is also 
responsible.

However, He has evidently judged the consequences of _not_ letting this 
charade play itself out as being more harmful than diminishing His 
immediate responsibility by supernaturally curtailing it.

Cheers; Leon

--
"For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone," says the Lord God.
"Turn, then, and live" -- Ezekiel 18:32, NRSV