On AD 2008 January 21 Monday 04:58:24 AM -0700, Levi Pearson wrote: > I just don't believe that there is a principle binding upon humanity > to make all software free. That's where the religion comes in.
Neither do I. I use it because it makes *my* world better and blithely believe that it would make the rest of the world better as well. > > My reasons are partly idealistic, experimental, curious, and > > practical. I believe that software as OSS is necessarily better for > > the world, so I've made it the staple of mine. > > In the Japanese culture, rice is the staple of the diet. However, > that's not *all* they eat. I don't imagine it would be very > nutritious to eat nothing but rice. Should I mix a little proprietary SW into my diet so that it will be more nutritious? :-) > Open source software is great because it does provide a lot of > opportunity to exercise curiosity and experiment with stuff. Just > because it is great doesn't mean that it should be the only way to > make software, or that it is the only software that should be used. I'm curious as to whether you have a positive counter argument for this. > > Since OSS is developed in the open I am better able to learn > > about/with it than its proprietary counterparts. The freedom to > > copy, study, and modify it is an excellent benefit that proprietary > > SW by definition cannot offer. > > Yeah, I hear this a lot. How much do you actually study and modify > the Linux kernel? How often do you look at the source code to > Firefox? Not very often, I'll bet. I submit you hear it a lot because it's true. Just because *I* don't read the source of all the SW I use doesn't negate the benefit. Moreover, the OSS world is large and diverse and I suppose that there are people out there hacking on most everything because they can. > Would it be a great benefit to humanity if all the plans and specs of > your home appliances were available? Probably not, as it would likely > increase the cost somewhat and provide no benefit to anyone but the > rarest purchaser. I may be one of those purchasers. :-) > There is no universal principle that mandates all software to be free. > Free software is a great thing, but adhering to such an imagined > principle provides no moral high ground, cuts off access to useful > software, and generally does no good to anyone. I hope my principles aren't imagined. I'm passionate about Free Software goodness but maybe I'm unwittingly guilty of Free Software religion as well. > > Besides that I can get all the OSS I need without price. That is the > > substance of my principle and I fail to know how this elicits your > > condescension. > > I.e., "I'm a cheapskate, so I refuse to support working programmers by > paying them money for their work." Nice principle there. That's kind of a dogmatic argument. > And you're calling me condescending? Maybe a little, but if we were > to talk about music, I think I'd get a little of that back from > you. :) I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. That's not hard to do since I am often given over to rhapsodic effusions in the place of cogent arguments, but I always enjoy arguing with you because your logic and scintillating wisdom act like detergent on the understanding. Justin /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
