On Feb 3, 6:45 am, "Alfred M. Szmidt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Yes, I want the questions taken seriously, since I want a real and > understandable answer so I can put the questions to bed, I want to > learn! > > The best way is not to ask questions, but to find them yourself.
I know, but sometimes I just cannot do that. If I found the answers myself already, I would not be asking. But the problem is I have not been _able_ to find those answers to these _specific_ questions. I've looked at the FSF pages, looked through some of Stallman's essays, but haven't found it! Furthermore, I was also asking for help in understanding an answer I was given here on this thread. Where could I go to find the answers, then? If I try to hypothesize what the answer might be, then I'll have to consult with someone to see if I got it right, which means coming to this group, and then I'll be dismissed as a troll. If that's wrong, and you *want* to hear my own hypothesis though, then the best I have so far is this. The mere _creation_ of proprietary software is not what is unethical, so the job the programmer has creating proprietary software is not unethical -- what is, however, is the _usage_ of that software to take away someone's freedom. Furthermore, when you write software for a company (although I don't know this for a fact since I haven't worked for a software company but it seems reasonable. I may be wrong, and will accept a correction.), you do not have a say in how it's going to be licensed and distributed -- that is up to the company, so they're the ones who use your creation to "subjugate" the freedom of the users, not you. They are the ones that make it proprietary, not the programmer. Did I get that all right? The reasoning here is that it is the subjugation of the user's freedom that is the issue that makes "proprietary software" unethical. Where I was, and still am having trouble though, is with the fact that it seems one is _aiding_ someone to take away the freedom of the user, even if one does not do that themselves. Isn't that unethical too? So then what's going on here? I'm really not getting it. As for what David Kastrup here meant by "balancing benefits and harms", I'm still not quite sure what that means and he hasn't responded, so, argh..... :( The hypothesis I had there was that this meant that hte job harms people but you offset that by making free software. But that doesn't seem to excuse the "wrong": it's like saying I can rob banks and "offset" that by giving back some of the money I get, or giving away money I make using the robbed money. (It also sounds like Al Gore's stuff about "offsetting" the CO2 emissions from his luxurious lifestyle by getting more green energy to be produced.) _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
