Re: Stormy's update: Week of July 13th

[Philip Van Hoof <pvanhoof gnome org>]

On Tue, 2009-07-21 at 21:43 -0400, Richard Stallman wrote:
> Another problem with trying to find an issue here is that, depending on
>     the point of view, Amazon acted within their own Terms (point iii under
>     "Subscriptions").
> 
> Legally, that would make a difference; ethically, it is beside the
> point.  Some people are willing to sign away their freedom for some
> sort of convenience.

I don't see it as signing your freedom away. I see it as receiving a
convenience in exchange for an agreement.

Surely ain't every agreement 'ethical'. The implicit agreement of your
opponent's knight that is going to take either a rook or your queen, and
you having the option, means that you don't really have an option.

You have to pick the least evil one (wrt your strategy). But you still
had the option to play or not to play chess (with that opponent).

Just like you had the option to buy, or not to buy, an Amazon Kindle.
There are similar devices that have similar functionality that don't
come with 'evil' knights (if you prefer a different opponent).

Is it really bad when people get punished for making the wrong choices?
Is it really true that we must shield all people from every imaginable
danger? Ain't this part of learning?

I think that choice is a freedom that people ought to have. Freedom of
choice is in fact more important than having access to source code. For
me, these two don't conflict. And yes, having access to source code
hypothetically creates more choice. But that's just a goal. Goals aren't
very interesting once reached, the path towards it was more interesting.

Besides, I want opensource developers to feel competition. Competition
is the best thing that has ever happened to us. 

> In societies where appreciation of freedom is
> weak, many people may be willing to do this -- especially when unjust
> laws such as the DMCA and the EU Copyright Directive forbid the
> existence of an equally convenient alternsative,
> 
> We cannot accept proprietary software as legitimate merely because
> users at some point said yes to the license agreement.

I guess this is where you and me differ on opinion. I think this is a
black and white point of view. The reality of it is gray.

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