Quoting Oleg Goldshmidt, from the post of Sun, 12 Jan: > > I am glad if it is. It is not so clear to me though, because, if you > re-read the thread, there are voices that suggest a Stallmanist line > as an official policy of Hamakor. All I did was saying that in my > opinion it is narrow, divisive, and shouldn't happen. If it does, I'll > have to consider what I should do. Does Hamakor have a problem with this?
like you say, it's AN official, not THE official. also, we are not talking policies here, we are talking about principals. Hamakor WILL promote the principals of freedom, as well as those of open source and open standards. what's the difference between ideology/principals and actual religious zealousness? there is quite a difference. for one thing, a zealot would force his opinions and boycott opposers. I'm not religious about it, but I do support the principals. I use GNU for the freedom it gives me but I don't let it stop me from buying from Amazon or using Qmail. promoting is one thing (pro) and objecting is another (con). Stallman has a lot of pro principals that I admire, a few con principals which I think are important, and a few con principals I find rediculously extreme. in my private life I try to implement the first two. for Hamakor I'd only like to adopt the pro principals, but you said that even those are abusive and should not be in the official list of goals. well, too late, read the takanon. > > Talk to me - what bothers you about Hamakor? > > The possibility that it will adopt Stallman's POV and start pointing > fingers at, boycotting, and whatnot those (members or others) who are > deemed "traitors to freedom". I feel uneasy helping Sun or Microsoft with opensource projects, because their motives are not pure at best, but if the opportunity arrises and Hamakor finds itself cooperating with them, I'll give them my blessing if it does not betray the goals as are in the Takanon and keep the spirit of either Open Source or Free :) frame that and come sue me if I act otherwise in the future :) > resembling ideology here. Of course, you can always say that trying to > avoid ideology is also an ideology... not to mention that "technology should advance" and "the human race should be encouraged to achieve more", and "one should advence science". Those are ideals that may not be your bag, and indeed I agree don't have a single interpretation or are global. > > When does an argument stop becoming practical and starts becoming > > ideological? > > When you start branding Linus a traitor because he chooses BitKeeper > as his revision control system because BitKeeper is "not free". The no, that's when ideology becomes religious zealotry, and I'm against that. I've had it up to here with Kfia Datit in this country, I don't want such issues to leak into my hobbies and work. the fact I believe in non-kosher does not mean I boycot kosher restaurants (try and find a falafel without a kosher sign!) because it means I'm paying a procent to the local rabanut (though I know people who do), but I will choose to "boycot" McDonalds on technical reasons (does insisting on minimally-processed food count as a religion or a healthy sense of self preservation? that's a different argument). for Stallman, Freedom is as basic as self preservation. Fine. I don't mind living in a world where there is proprietary standards and software in case there is enough Freedom to balance it and keep it at bay, and as long as it doesn't touch my personal well being. > depth here. Although it seems significant to me that even a > self-professed Stallmanist like Ira uses qmail, apparently choosing > technical reasons over pure ideology. I'm an idealist maybe, but not a zealot. maybe saying I'm "a stallmanist" is too extreme, so keep my definition above - I try to follow similar lines to promote freedom. I don't take his extreme views about boycotting certain companies or products altogether. > it occurred to me that if I stand up and say that I disagree it will > look like I am against some basic, universal values that everybody > should share, because that's how things are presented. And then I well, I agree thaqt the ideal of freedom is not global, and where it is an ideal it is not the same concept always. you DO agree that you enjoy the freedom of seeing, changing and getting the code for free, but you are not happy with the fact I want to fight for your right to do so? I would never force anyone to free their source, but I would certainly try to persuade them or prefer to work with someone else if it makes no difference for me. I WILL do my best to force service providers I have NO OPTION but to work with to change their way, i.e. the government, the banks and the health services. I will do all in my power to make them use Open standards because it concenrns my health and pocket and well being. I will not FORCE or BOYCOT or do anything AGAINST a vendor or service provider I have a choice in (i.e. Microsoft. I have good competing options for anything they offer me, so I have no reaosn to fight them). the most open "anti MS" thing I ever did was give away linux brochures and CDs at a Microsoft announcement "party". I didn't call people to ban MS, I called them to be aware of the available options. > this is exactly what happened in the public dialogue Ira drew me into, > which quickly took the form of "how can you be against something so > basic and global?" All I said was, it's not basic, it's not global, > and using this kind of argumentation will not necessarily help the > openness in software, which is a practical goal that I consider ok, I get it. you have a different ideas about what freedom is (which I accept) but are annoyed that I have a different rank of importance for "sharing". well, sharing is what gets you open sources. you like using them, you like that they are free. Why should hamakor not promote the idea(l) of sharing? > towards Stallman should be, "RMS is entitled to his opinions which do > not contradict our goals in any way". If you go over the "freedom you're saying that freedom and sharing contradicts the takanon? you have me really confused now. -- Invariably great Ira Abramov http://ira.abramov.org/email/ This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
msg24904/pgp00000.pgp
Description: PGP signature
