I am a Debian user. Doesn't Debian have an ethics policy? What about software, even free software, whose technical documentation plainly and bluntly lies about its capabilities? I refer to XFree86's pervasively well-documented feature of supporting multiheaded (multiple monitored) systems. I have just spent some $450 for a monitor and a card, based on my perusal of the technical documentation, and attempted to hook up the monitor to my PC, beside the other one. It took me a week to delve into the documents, write all the scripts and put everything together. Only to discover at the end of my money and time that nothing worked or could work. I would have been better off to buy a 19'' monitor, had I not been misled --- only now I can't. My money is spent on an unusable monitor. And I'll bet that I am not the first or the last to be caught so.
While I appreciate the efforts of those in the free sofware community, I also fully well and reasonably expect developers not to knowingly tell outright lies. There is an expectation raised in the minds of those who use documentation which is technical that it is, indeed, technical and meets a higher standard of truth than mere expository literature. The expectation is given further given merit when the documentation is that of a widely used package and normally, usually meets that higher standard of truth for everyday purposes. The ethics violation is worse when it occurs in such a situation. What good is free software when people are deliberately misled about what it can do? How many rotten apples in the barrell does it take to infect the good ones there? Regards, Jesse Gilman The Atlantum