[linux-audio-dev] Free Software vs. Open Source: Where do *you* stand?

[Pete Bessman]

On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 16:30 +0100, David Kastrup wrote:
> Chris Cannam <cannam at all-day-breakfast.com> writes:
> 
> > An irony of both open source and free software is that they make it
> > easy to forget that all software is almost always written by decent
> > humans -- for example, by implying that proprietary software
> > developers are less moral and so less significant.  If my free
> > software work puts a company or its developers out of work, then
> > that's a problem for my conscience.  It's not a victory for free
> > software.  And it's not "just business", because it's not business.
> > I will have damaged people's livelihoods, for fun.
> 
> That particular argument does not hold water at all, sorry.  Following
> your kind of logic, people caring for peace on Earth are damaging the
> livelihoods of weapon producers, decent people mostly, and that merely
> for their selfish desire of a world worth living in.

No, this is a bunch of BS.  You're equating software producers with
weapon producers, who you're equating with evil (and, implicitly, weapon
users, a fact which I find personally insulting).  That's all wrong, but
the salient point is that Chris stipulated that proprietary software
producers *aren't* evil!  The only way they can be evil is if you
stipulate a moral code which dictates as much.

They're not torturing babies, for chrissakes.

> If their livelihoods get tougher because of a world where work is
> shared and exchanged between consenting and cooperating humans, so
> much the better.  It is a byproduct one can live with.

Yeah, ever heard of capitalism?  Or do you have a bone to pick with
that, too?

Seriously, there are better things to do than demonize proprietary
software producers.  Go kill a terrorist if you need somebody to beat up
on, at least you'll be making the world a better place in the process.
Last I checked, Microsoft wasn't bombing any subways.

-- 
Pete Bessman
http://gazuga.net
"So this baby seal walks into a club."