On Fri, Jan 23, 2004 at 09:15:40PM +0100, Sergey V. Spiridonov wrote:
> Anthony Towns wrote:
> >>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.
> So, in your opinion, distributing of free and non-free produce the same
> amount of good.
Uh, no. They both do the same amount of *harm*, ie, none at all.
Distributing high quality software that's widely useful to people is a
greater good than distributing low quality software that's useful to
no one. All else being equal, a free license makes the software both
more valuable (there's more stuff you can do with it if you can pull it
apart, and put it back together again in a different way), and useful
to more people.
> Of course, according to you there are no bad consequences from packaging
> and distributing non-free, as well as from packaging and distributing
> free.
You seem to think that not doing the most optimal thing is causing harm;
and thus that if you have the power to force someone else to do a more
optimal thing, then you're morally obligated to make use of that power.
Personally, I think that's an evil philosophy.
But even given it, that's not the choice we've got here. We've got the
power to stop people from doing a suboptimal activity -- distributing
some software for free, that's not DFSG-free. If we stop them doing that,
they may spend some more time on DFSG-free stuff, or they might instead
spend their time killing babies or selling their software at a profit.
> The amount of good does not depend of the license, but sometimes
> it is easier to package non-free, so according to you it will be better
> to package first such a easy non-free, then free, and since there is
> already non-free, which can solve users problem, there is no need to
> package free anymore, since it will be just waste of time.
No, none of that is remotely true. The existance of non-free software
doesn't particularly impede the creation of free software -- anymore
than Minix impeded Linux, Windows XP has impeded Gnome or KDE, or Oracle
has impeded Postfix and MySQL. And given the comparative sizes of main
and non-free, imagining that non-free has any measurable impact on the
amount of free software we package is idiotic.
> Are you sure, that free software have higher priority for your
> than non-free?
If it didn't, I wouldn't be spending time on Debian or Linux. I'm not
sure why you feel it's appropriate to wander on to these lists and throw
around thoughtless insults like the above, either.
Cheers,
aj
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.
Linux.conf.au 2004 -- Because we could.
http://conf.linux.org.au/ -- Jan 12-17, 2004
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