Okay, this argument is going in circles.

I think the main points are:

o Will feels this is more a moral question than a technical one.
o Scott (I gather) and I disagree with Will's moral findings and, 
speaking for myself, also feel it is more of a technical question.
o That's about it. We just disagree.

So, let's close this out. The horse has been officially beaten after 
death by everyone.

Thanks.

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Identity Management, LDAP, and Linux Integration


willhill wrote:
> Scott, what you said is both insulting and wrong.  I understand the issues 
> but 
> don't agree with you.  It is a matter of principles and I'm not ashamed of 
> that.
> 
> Your dismissal of principles is more disturbing than your insult.  Technology 
> use should be guided by principles rather than the converse.  The whole point 
> of the exercise is to overcome limitations and improve the world for people.  
> All of us must exercise moral judgment or we can be used as tools and do 
> things we should be ashamed of.
> 
> I think I've got both technical and moral issues right on this one.  From a 
> technical perspective, dumb networks are more efficient than "smart" ones.  
>>From a moral perspective, censorship is wrong and censorship to support 
> monopoly software shortcomings is doing something wrong for the sake of 
> something bad.  You can argue that this is the way things are but that only 
> proves that things are not as they should be.  There's no difference between 
> the bits I'm uploading here in this email and the same bits sent by my own 
> mail or web server.  It's wrong for Cox to keep me from running either and 
> that's one aim of their goofey email filter.  The problem you have pointed 
> out is not caused by people like me, it's caused by an OS that's so easy to 
> abuse that it's responsible for the majority of the world's spam.  As moral 
> implementers of technology, we owe it to people to recommend software that 
> works and eliminate software that creates problems.  Doing otherwise only 
> makes things harder.  
> 
> Networks, like software, are better when they don't have owners.  Information 
> is always better when you can get it from the source.  Network owners have a 
> tendency to get in the way and exploit their position.  The most egregious 
> example of that is state controlled, broadcast media.  The more control we 
> allow network owners to exert, the less good networks will do.  
> 
> On Tuesday 29 January 2008 11:22 pm, Scott Harney wrote:
>> You either a) don't understand what I am saying or b) don't want to
>> understand what I'm saying because it conflicts with your beliefs in some
>> way.  Whatever.
> 
>> The various other readers of the list will make their own judgements and
>> discuss the technical aspects.
> 
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