On Tue, Mar 18, 2003 at 08:28:37AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: > On Mon, Mar 17, 2003 at 10:27:31AM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: > > 1) The freedom to take away other poeple's freedom, and > > Number (1) is a real imposition, but not a real freedom. > > "The freedom to XXX is not a real freedom." > > Look, I know it's fun to redefine words so that you can pretend whatever > you're arguing against is a contradiction in terms, but it doesn't > go anywhere. I take it you subscribe to a "state of nature" definition of freedom, then, in which the only true freedom belongs to a man who lives by himself on a planet? In any social scenario, the freedoms of one party are necessarily limited by the freedoms (or "rights") of another. Rights and freedoms are always going to be in tension; it's the nature of the beast. Thomas is entitled to argue that the freedom to withhold source code from the recipeients of object code is as objectionable as the "freedom to enslave" or the "freedom to kidnap". Whether he makes a compelling case for such an argument is another story, but it's not unsound on its face, as you have characterized it. -- G. Branden Robinson | "There is no gravity in space." Debian GNU/Linux | "Then how could astronauts walk branden@debian.org | around on the Moon?" http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | "Because they wore heavy boots."
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