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Programmers have to eat, and free software needs a supporting paradigm to be sustainable. With Firefox it's the search engine, with Apache it's support, only sm

by pippy 14y ago

Programmers have to eat, and free software needs a supporting paradigm to be sustainable. With Firefox it's the search engine, with Apache it's support, only smaller projects can be made from pure passion. Any large company porting software to a platform will be good, as more people (and thus support) will come to Linux. >Nonfree games (like other nonfree programs) are unethical because they deny freedom to their users I get the feeling he lives in a fantasy world. Unethical is hitting a baby in the face, not allowing people to see how you wrote a computer programme.

jiggy2011 14y ago
Just because you are not doing something directly and obviously "evil" like hitting a baby does not mean something cannot be unethical. As more of our world is software and we rely on it to do things like store our personal information and trust it to respect our privacy etc, how is the availability and ability to understand and inspect that software not a potentially very ethical issue?
- pippy 14y ago
  Yes you're right. I was trying to frame ethics in its popular definition. I personally love and support open source projects, as they are better from a moral standpoint. Proprietary software isn't a really bad thing, comparing it to say murder or thievery. If you had to choose between doing the wrong thing (which isn't that bad) and not eating, most people would do the wrong thing.
dsrguru 14y ago
Well, I'm certainly grateful that his views are this strong, or else there wouldn't have been a free software movement for the open source movement to arise out of. If you think about it, the world as we know it would be completely different without Stallman. However, I'm not quite sure I agree with his belief that the existence of proprietary software licenses that tell you not to share with your neighbor create a double bind in which you either comply with the license and contribute to the destruction of social cohesion or you help your neighbor but incur psychosocial harm in the form of guilt that shouldn't be. :)
AJ007 14y ago
I would agree that DRM that breaks basic functions of an OS is unethical. I believe that DRM that prevents a user from using or accessing something for which he or she has paid for, at any time in the future for any reason, is unethical and legally dubious. The free or nonfreeness of a particular piece of software is as much of a moral question as the color of sand on a beach.
- dsrguru 14y ago
  But if you believe that DRM which "prevents a user from using or accessing something for which he or she has paid for, at any time in the future for any reason, is unethical and legally dubious," why don't you believe the same about nonfree software programs that meet the quoted criteria? Or are you saying proprietary software is okay if and only if its license is not enforced? Actually, the more I think about that the more I think I agree with it.

by pippy 14y ago

jiggy2011 14y ago

Just because you are not doing something directly and obviously "evil" like hitting a baby does not mean something cannot be unethical. As more of our world is software and we rely on it to do things like store our personal information and trust it to respect our privacy etc, how is the availability and ability to understand and inspect that software not a potentially very ethical issue?

pippy 14y ago
Yes you're right. I was trying to frame ethics in its popular definition. I personally love and support open source projects, as they are better from a moral standpoint. Proprietary software isn't a really bad thing, comparing it to say murder or thievery. If you had to choose between doing the wrong thing (which isn't that bad) and not eating, most people would do the wrong thing.

dsrguru 14y ago

Well, I'm certainly grateful that his views are this strong, or else there wouldn't have been a free software movement for the open source movement to arise out of. If you think about it, the world as we know it would be completely different without Stallman. However, I'm not quite sure I agree with his belief that the existence of proprietary software licenses that tell you not to share with your neighbor create a double bind in which you either comply with the license and contribute to the destruction of social cohesion or you help your neighbor but incur psychosocial harm in the form of guilt that shouldn't be. :)

AJ007 14y ago

I would agree that DRM that breaks basic functions of an OS is unethical. I believe that DRM that prevents a user from using or accessing something for which he or she has paid for, at any time in the future for any reason, is unethical and legally dubious. The free or nonfreeness of a particular piece of software is as much of a moral question as the color of sand on a beach.

dsrguru 14y ago
But if you believe that DRM which "prevents a user from using or accessing something for which he or she has paid for, at any time in the future for any reason, is unethical and legally dubious," why don't you believe the same about nonfree software programs that meet the quoted criteria? Or are you saying proprietary software is okay if and only if its license is not enforced? Actually, the more I think about that the more I think I agree with it.