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

[Philip Van Hoof <pvanhoof gnome org>]

On Sun, 2009-12-13 at 13:34 +0000, Rui Miguel Silva Seabra wrote:
> Em 13-12-2009 12:44, Philip Van Hoof escreveu:

> > Richard's claim that proprietary is illegitimate is enforcement. He's
> > making a philosophic mistake that contradicts his own ideology of free
> > choice.
> 
> Choice of the master is not free choice for a slave. It only looks like 
> "free choice" to other masters uninvolved in the choice.

Ridiculous hyperbole.

> > Free choice isn't enforceable. You can only convince people of it.
>  >
>  >> I think Richard has correctly highlighted the fact that the GNOME
>  >> Planet could better promote free software.
>  >
>  > That's not his only request, though. He's requesting GNOME to claim
>  > that proprietary software is illegitimate. Let's focus on that.
> 
> The coin of software freedom has two sides to conving people to buy it:
>   0) promotion of Free Software
>   1) critic of proprietary software
> 
> Just like you can't educate a child just by teaching him the good 
> examples, you have to critic the bad examples in front of the child: 
> there's no law against being unpolite, it's perfectly legal, but 
> shouldn't one repress unpolite behaviours when a child exhibits them?

You're assuming developers are children who have to be punished into
making choices.

> GNOME, both as a community and as a foundation, should teach the good 
> examples and critic the bad ones.

GNOME should stick to teaching the good examples. Criticizing the bad
ones is only counter productive.

You teach people by cooperating with them. What Miguel has been doing is
a good example how to convince people of (some) new ideas.

> As such, I don't think this is enough:
> 
>  > We already do this:
>  >
>  > http://www.gnome.org/about/
> 
> Stopping here is quite insufficient. To me, proprietary software is 
> illegitimate. Not in the legal sense, as the law allows that, but in the 
> human sense. It teaches that sharing is evil. It tries to hold you as a 
> slave to it's proprietary formats, and lock you in as a defenseless 
> customer.
> 
> But to me it's no wonder you should think it is, specially since you 
> seem pretty adamant against critic of proprietary software.
> 
> It seems to me you're one of those people who think the freedom of 
> speech of others is a shotgun pointed at your head forcing you to do 
> stuff in a certain way they prefer.

It's stunning that first you are talking about repressing childish
behavior, talking about how bad being impolite is ...

And here you are doing argumentum ad hominem.

It undermines your credibility.

> Ever heard of filters? If Richard Stallman get's so much into your 
> nerves, just make a filter to delete his emails automatically.

Did I say Richard gets into my nerves? Why would I want to delete his
E-mails? Why wouldn't I want to know how he thinks, what he writes?

Why are you talking on behalf of me, anyway?

> Don't create more pointless flame wars or appeal to loose-loose schisms 
> as that's what you're doing.

Nonsense and more ad hominem.


-- 
Philip Van Hoof, freelance software developer
home: me at pvanhoof dot be 
gnome: pvanhoof at gnome dot org 
http://pvanhoof.be/blog
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