4 ms·
If your freedom/rights takes the freedom/rights of others away, what may you argue about, if your freedom/rights is also taken away? Because something might be
by kevin_bauer 13y ago
If your freedom/rights takes the freedom/rights of others away, what may you argue about, if your freedom/rights is also taken away?
Because something might be inconvenient to you, it doesn't make it automatically wrong. There's a distinct line between free as in freedom and free as in arbitrariness. The former comes with responsibilities, the later without.
- gress 13y agoThis is true but irrelevant because the freedom to distribute software without the source code does not take away anyone else's rights.
- kevin_bauer 13y agoI beg to differ! As the NSA-debacle shows, it takes my right away to a) ensure there's no backdoor, b) the software i get does exactly what was promised and c) in a way and quality as advertised. Furthermore take a look at the "USL v. BSDi" lawsuit, where BSD was sued by AT&T for infringing copyright-laws against their own(BSD) source-code, which was incorporated into USL(AT&T's) UNIX-variants! "Freedom" comes with responsibility, if you want carefree "arbitrariness", then say so, but please don't mix them together, they are fundamentally different!
- gress 13y agoThe NSA debacle is irrelevant to this and source code doesn't guarantee any of the desires you state there. I recommend studying software verification if you are unsure of this. Furthermore they are not rights - they are desires. You are free to negotiate terms with people from whom you obtain software, and you are free to refuse software without source code. What the GPL seeks to do is force other people not to be free to choose their own terms. Whether you like the effects of the GPL or not, it has nothing to do with freedom.