There are ethical objections to not releasing source code for a programme. Without it, it's more or less impossible to understand how the programme works and to modify it, so this isn't much different to prohibiting studying and modifying it through legal means. When you stop someone studying how their software works, this is unethical, because they can't tell if there's malicious features in it or what bugs it contains. When you stop them from modifying it, this is unethical because you leave them helpless, by taking away their ability to control what their software does, so you take away their control over part of their life.
These problems could easily be solved by releasing the programme in source code form as well as executable form. There's no fundamental difference between using legal means and technical means to take away other people's freedom. It still has the same negative effect on them. Guy _______________________________________________ gNewSense-users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnewsense-users
