[CS-FSLUG] TD: (Im)morality of (non)free software

[Eduardo Sanchez]

On Monday 28 February 2005 22:01, Aaron Lehmann wrote:
> 
> But what if they don't WANT to benefit the public?  What if they wish 
to
> be selfish?  Why should they be denied the rights over their own code
> the original author had over his? 

If they are selfish, great. Do not use the code and seek another code 
suitable to your purpose. If you value so much proprietary rights, then 
the issue of copyright which lies at the heart of the GNU GPL should be 
of the utmost importance for you. Why is that you seem to value 
proprietary software and selfish motives so much, and yet you fail to 
value copyright restrictions? Seems like double-discourse to me.


> I say that users who
> insist on the GPL are selfish, and are making unreasonable demands on
> software developers. 

What kind of unreasonable demands? If you don't like it, don't bother 
with it, and don't use it.

> I say that the GPL system is based on the idea 
> that users are more important than developers, and that users have the
> right to set terms about how developers develope.  That would be well
> and good if it claimed to forward "code slavery" or "product 
communism,"
> but it doesn't.

This is too heavy-handed and unreasonably ad-hominem. You should 
apologize.

> It talks about freedom, and says that it is promoting 
> that.  Well it isn't.  It takes away the rights of the few, so that 
the
> many can have inalienable privelages.  It disgusts me, and I'll not
> release my code under it.
> 

Your mouth is full of saying how the GPL restricts those freedoms, and 
yet you proclaim your (autonomous? or is it determined by fate?) choice 
of not using it in your code. Ironic, isn't it?

Utter humbug. I expected something better, not fallacies and ad-hominem 
attacks. This is just FUD.

I rest my case, I will not participate again in this thread.


Eduardo
-- 
Prof. Eduardo Sanchez
Asuncion, Paraguay, South America
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 And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press,
 End in what All begins and ends in--Yes;
   Think then you are TO-DAY what YESTERDAY
 You were--TO-MORROW you shall not be less.

 -- The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
    

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