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This isn't his tone, it is the foundation of his argument -- closed source is necessarily and fundamentally immoral, nay, evil. That's an extraordinary claim,
by chernevik 13y ago
This isn't his tone, it is the foundation of his argument -- closed source is necessarily and fundamentally immoral, nay, evil. That's an extraordinary claim, which drives his thinking to absolutism. And its bases have implications far outside the field of software.
- ajross 13y agoRight. So you reject his absolutism via an equally absolutist stance where you refuse to treat his arguments because you don't like their "implications". Shrug. I used to think like you. I was wrong. Read his points, not their "implications". I suspect you'll find more to agree with than you think.
- chernevik 13y agoExactly wrong. Read the bit where I talk about agreeing with him, and finding ways to cooperate without agreeing with him everywhere?
- betterunix 13y ago"closed source is necessarily and fundamentally immoral, nay, evil" Keep in mind that RMS is talking about the broader social impact of a proprietary software ecosystem, not any single proprietary software product. RMS is working against a model where people are divided by the restrictions imposed by proprietary licenses and by proprietary software itself. In a proprietary software ecosystem, people are divided not merely by their technical skills, but by the whims of software vendors. The reason RMS' arguments seem to have implications outside the field of software is that proprietary software ecosystems have effects that go beyond software.