Pierre: I am enjoying your use cases, but there is a problem with all of them.
All of these examples have a common element: one party is willing to permit use of information, but not willing to directly disclose that information. I agree with you that these cases are interesting. I personally feel that they are legitimate, which is why I do NOT identify myself as a "free software" advocate (open source fan and supporter, yes, free software ideologue, no). But this pattern of "allow use but do not disclose" is exactly the thing that the Free Software movement believes is inappropriate. It is exactly the thing that Marcus wishes to make impossible. I actually find this very curious. RMS has been willing to let the world evolve into understanding over time, and this has been greatly beneficial. Marcus is trying to take a "giant leap." I don't think it is going to work, but it is certainly interesting. I personally do not believe that Free Software can be advanced with a stick. If the movement says to potential users "here is a big invasive constraint, come see how wonderful our stuff is" most users will say "no thanks". The right approach, in my opinion, is not to say "what you are doing should not be done" but rather "here is a more effective approach". Show, don't preach. Demonstrating the better approach is how the movement has advanced successfully in the past, and it is how the movement will continue to advance. In my opinion, the only thing that Marcus is likely to achieve by requiring an "all or nothing" commitment is the failure and irrelevance of the Hurd. I will go further: I believe that a major failure of Hurd project in the past is that the project has consistently been more focused on ideology than practical utility. It has chosen to be "pure" in preference to "useful". I may be wrong about *all* of this, but that is my opinion. I am just a visitor. What the Hurd community should do about it is up to the community. shap _______________________________________________ L4-hurd mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/l4-hurd
