Hi Berin!
Berin Loritsch wrote:
> > 08 - "Linux is not in the public domain", so what? Straw man forever.
>
> This statement is never truer. Linux is not public domain, it is protected
> by copyright law, as well as the GPL distribution license. All licenses have
> a price--though not always measured in money.
OK, let me rephrase it. If I say, "I like having sex for free", it's
something I shouldn't even have to say -- it's the default. When I say
it, I'm implicitly saying that "I like having sex for free more than I
like paying for sex", and so I'm also (implicit but distinctly) talking
about prostitutes. This is one trick Ballmer uses: making an obvious
statement (should get him a Nobel prize or two) to express the opposite.
When you negate it, the consequences are even more drastic. If I say,
"You have not stolen money", without a previous accusation, I'm
implicitly saying that "you could have stolen money, but you didn't" --
and if you analyse it, I'm implanting the idea that you have stolen
money, then negating it. When it should go without saying.
This even more powerful trick lets us rephrase Ballmer's statement as
"Linux should rightly be in the public domain, but it isn't", creating
the impression of an injustice. The statement becomes a straw man, as
described by Sagan in "The Demon-Haunted World".
I don't know if these grammatic ramble is any more explanation, but I
cannot give you anything else.
Un saludo,
Alex.
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