Re: non-free and users?
On Jan 20, 2004, at 04:25, Sergey Spiridonov wrote:
but he can say "We refuse to do it, because we are busy with working
on free software replacement for what you are asking for and on other
free software. Packaging this can lead us and your to non-ethical
situations, but we have no free resources anyway."
Well, the thing is that we can't force volunteers to do... anything.
So, if no one wants to write a free replacement, no one will.
Even ignoring that, this argument does have a slight problem. For
example, the amount of work to replace FOO with a free alternative is
substantially more than the amount of work to package FOO. So, in the
same amount of time it took us to rewrite FOO, we could of packaged
BAZ, TAZ, and FROB, even if they aren't free.
That really just leaves the question: Does the ethical action of being
able to help some/most people by sharing non-free software outdo the
unethical action of being unable to help some people, because the
software is non-free? Or is the unethical action so bad that no amount
of ethical actions can make up for it?
Reply to: