Sven Luther wrote:
If developer agrees with such a limitation he is not able to modify this program to help his friend to adapt it for his needs. Developer will not be able to distribute modifications to others who also need such an improvenment. This contradicts human ethics, because help is ethical.
Yeah sure, whatever. Please tell me how this developer would be better able to help this friend, if the orinal work is not available at all. In either case, he can start from scratch, and reimplement the program in a free fashion, and thus help his friend.
If the original work is not available at all, developer will not be able to act non-ethical.
> Also, notice that this same argument can be hold against your > argument. If we can help someone by providing non-free packages, and > that their licence allow them to use it, is it not counter-ethical for > us to not distribute such non-free package ?If we have something to distribute and we reject to help people who need it, it is not ethical. But if we drop this something (erase, delete, burn), we will not act non-ethical anymore when someone request it from us.
-- Best regards, Sergey Spiridonov