Re: non-free and users?
Anthony Towns wrote:
Damn, I thought I already replied to this. Apparently not.
On Thu, Jan 22, 2004 at 10:50:47AM +0100, Sergey Spiridonov wrote:
If there were one "human ethic" that was universally agreed upon, this
might be worth talking about; but there isn't.
There are some basic things, formulated a long time ago. For example,
helping other people is something which everyone consider as good.
Make other people to suffer is what everyone consider as bad.
Well, that's nice, but the choice is rarely so clear cut. For example,
there's a saying: "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day;
teach a man to fish, and you feed him for life". Often, though, the
choice isn't that easy: you'll get people who'll want you to give them
a fish, but don't want to be taught how to fish. Maybe they don't have
the time, maybe they don't have the confidence to think they can fish,
maybe they just don't want to do things for themselves. Your choice then
is to either give them the fish now and do nothing about the long term
problem, or to cause your neighbour suffering in the short term either
by forcing him to learn against his will, or by leaving him hungry in
the hopes that will change his mind in the future.
Yes, you are right. But if there are people, which want to learn, how to
fish and I am busy with teaching those who want to learn, and I do
not spend time on fishing for those who do not want to learn, it is
ethical to say: "Sorry, I'm busy with teaching those who want to learn,
I have no time to fish for you". It is ethical to say and to do so,
because by teaching people you help them more effectively.
The question is rarely "are people suffering, or are people being helped";
it's almost always "how are people suffering, how are people being helped,
and how the hell can we compare these two things?". It's a hard problem,
and in spite of people thinking about it for literally thousands of years,
we've no definite answers.
What are all this GPL, LGPL, BSD and Artisic about? What is the reason
to value them more than non-free licenses?
Huh? Isn't that obvious?
It is not obvious.
Well, I'm afraid it should be, and if it's not obvious to you, then you
don't have the background to be participating usefully in this discussion.
I clearly specify by presenting examples and explanations, how
distributing non-free produce ethical problems which result in
increasing amount of evil. That is why it is obvious for me, why working
and distributing free is always better then working and distributing
non-free. And you already demonstrate, that it is not obvious for you,
when you said, that we can produce more good if we will distribute
non-free. If it is possible, that distributing non-free can sometimes
produce more good, it is not obvious for you, why GPL is always better
then non-free.
The question isn't why should we value these licenses more, the question
is whether, given the choice, there's any software we should choose not
to distribute.
That is why I'm asking you, what will produce more good on the long
period of time, in your opinion, working on and distribution of free or
distribution of non-free? If you can't answer, this can only mean that
it is not obvious for you.
O.K., I just want to know, what is wrong in your opinion with associated
actions regarding non-free programs? Are there some bad consequences, if
any, which result from non-free distribution?
No, there aren't. There might be bad consequences from forcing people to use
non-free software; but we're not doing that.
There are certainly costs: there's the bandwidth and disk space
that's used for non-free stuff, and the money sponsors and mirrors
have to pay for that; and there's the time people spend making sure the
infrastructure works for non-free, and there's the time people actually
spend maintaining non-free software. But fortunately *all* of that is
voluntary; if the costs to mirrors or developers outweigh the benefits,
they can stop paying them as soon as they like.
For the case where there's a non-free program to solve a problem, but
no corresponding free program, we offer our users the choice of solving
that problem immediately, or working on a free replacement that they'll
be able to use no matter how their requirements change. I think that's
a good choice to be offering our users.
Cheers,
aj
--
Best regards, Sergey Spiridonov
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