[CS-FSLUG] The Moral Foundation of Free Software

[David Aikema]

On Sat, 1 Jan 2005 17:12:22 -0500, Aaron Patrick Lehmann
<lehmanap at cs.purdue.edu> wrote:

> Econoline is a a copyrighted (or patented, or both) design.  Has a church
> violated some obscure moral principal in using an Econoline versus designing
> their own ChurchVan?
...
> I propose that in a vast array of situations, a closed source alternative is
> better stewardship nowadays.  More and more, students are taught how to use

I agree.  The church's goal should be to direct people to Christ
rather than open source software.  If the two goals happen to
coincide, then so be it, but otherwise...

> Microsoft's excellent suite of office tools in high school.  People are growing
> up with a computer that runs the latest Windows, and even adults are
> comfortable with it.  This competency is not a result of Microsoft's
> "intuitive" interface, but of long exposure and hard work.  Be that as it may,
> from a Church's perspective, its free (as in beer).  The church didn't have to
> pay to train its office people, they were already trained.  The person who
> maintains the machine already knows how to do it, as he's been doing it on his
> home machine for years.  

Your proposal of using donated software licenses kind of begins to
fall apart here.  Windows XP does have an interface that it a fair bit
different from its consumer-line predecessors.

> Almost everyone has a copy of Windows 95 or 98 around
> someware that they aren't using if they have been following the Microsoft
> upgrade treadmill.  Since they aren't using it, it's not breaking the EULA (I
> don't think) if they give all copies they have of it to their church.  The
> church now has free software that its staff is already trained on.  This seems
> like good stewardship to me.

Most of the licenses people have kicking around are of the OEM
variety.  According to the EULA, these are tied to the hardware in
question, so if the whole machine were donated (or a "large enough"
component of it) then you'd be legal.  Of course if the BSA comes
around they're likely to be demanding legal documentation ... although
I don't think that they'd be quite as agressive in pursuing a church
as a profit-oriented business.

David