On Mon, 05 Jul 2004 22:10:59 +1200 Nick Rout <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > <ethical philosophy lecture> > > Open Source advocates say that the argument is about the quality of the > > resultant code. (a consequentialist or utilitarian view) > > The Free Software Foundation say that it is morally wrong to buy, write > > or sell proprietary software. (a deontological or Kantian approach) > > </ethical philosophy lecture> > > > this is where it gets difficult for me, are you also saying that an > author of a book should not get royalties of be able to have copyright > protection? where is the difference? people train to become > programmers, and some become good at it. they write software. why > shouldn't they sell it if they want to? i don't see how it can be > immoral, as long as people have an effective choice about whether to use > it. > > choice about whether to use it probably means that it should stick to > some standard, like an rfc or whatever, or publish its api. mmm tonite I must have time to spare ;) I'd stay away from moral and I'd rather talk about ethics, but it's not necessary IMHO to invoke ethics either :) They sell hardware not a software product, so the whole book writer argument doesn't apply. A driver for a fast evolving product like linux should not be binary, if they value their IP (laugh) more than the cost of maintaining the binary driver minus revenues from linux user, well good for them... they will not have meeeeeee ;) cheers -- Delio
