Re: non-free and users?
On Thu, Jan 22, 2004 at 07:59:05PM +0100, Sergey V. Spiridonov wrote:
> >>I mean, that software can not be _evil_. As well as narcotics. As well
> >>as a gun. It is a human, who produce an _evil_. It is a human who
> >>acts non-ethical, or produce non-ethical situations.
Raul Miller wrote:
> > What you're doing -- positioning -- is a standard public relations tactic,
> > but is not a rational argument.
On Thu, Jan 22, 2004 at 10:21:17PM +0100, Sergey V. Spiridonov wrote:
> Tell me please, how software itself can be evil without a human?
I consider that a meaningless statement.
Anyways, what I was objecting to wasn't your last sentence but the
previous sentences, and your larger argument which seems to rest in
drawing analogies with illegal drug distribution.
> What ethics have to do with software without a human and his actions,
> aims, beliefs?
Nothing.
> It is a human and his actions which can make software evil.
Sure, and it is humans and human actions which makes software. [Though,
granted, humans use tools to accomplish this, and there's lots of layers
of indirection.]
Furthermore, without any human involvement, no human can even recognize
the presence or absence of anything, let alone something like evil
which is closely associated [in the negative sense] with human goals
and human outlook.
> One can package software with most restrictive license you can imagine,
> but this can not produce any ethical problem, until it will be
> *distributed*. If distribution is not performed, it can not produce
> described non-ethical situations, neither #1 nor #2.
In your example here, it's the license which is the potential problem,
not the software. The phrase "until it will be distributed" makes that
very obvious.
Also, I can construct examples where software would be used for evil
purposes without being distributed at all.
--
Raul
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