Re: foundation-list Digest, Vol 68, Issue 13

["Lefty (石鏡 )" <lefty shugendo org>]

On 12/13/09 7:24 AM, "Ciaran O'Riordan" <ciaran member fsf org> wrote:
>
> That's a rule (a policy), which is mild and doesn't involve jumping straight
> to blocking a whole blog.  And it was suggested in heated opposition to this
> comment:

No, Ciaran: you've removed the entire surrounding context, and recast the
sense of the statement to suit your rhetorical needs. I am _not_ calling for
a new rule, a new policy, or anything of the sort, and in fact, I'm
adamantly against any such thing as I've clearly stated.

A more accurate summation of my position is: "There is not a problem here,
and no one has managed to demonstrate that there is one. Accordingly, this
suggestion of Mr. Stallman's should be ignored and no action whatsoever
should be taken on it. If the situation described ever _does_ become a
demonstrable issue, deal with it then, but let's not do _anything_ about it
now."

This is obviously not Mr. Stallman's position. Don't attempt to minimize the
distance between our respective views when you have to do violence to one of
them in order to accomplish this.

Philip raises an excellent point as well: _I_ don't subscribe to the notion
that proprietary software is, by necessity, "illegitimate", "antisocial",
"immoral" or _any_ of those things. Like Philip, I believe it's a choice,
and a choice that an author is entirely entitled to make. I do not want to
see changes to Planet that require people to "sign up" to positions they
don't hold, or that make it appear that they necessarily espouse such
positions.

Bottom line: Mr. Stallman's proposal is divisive, unnecessary and literally
uncalled-for. If the issue continues to be pressed, maybe Philip is correct
and the best thing to do _is_ to put it to a vote.