[LAU] Some disturbing news

[Thorsten Wilms]

On 04.06.2018 11:41, Louigi Verona wrote:
> Hey Thorsten!
> 
> Thank you for your comment. I have not only read Stallman, I have 
> studied his writings very closely and wrote a large work on his 
> philosophy which can be found here:
> https://louigiverona.com/?page=projects&s=writings&t=philosophy&a=philosophy_freedoms

That whole thing seems to depend on a reversal. It's not 4 Freedoms 
because non-free software is claimed to be unjust, but non-free software 
is said to be unjust because it denies users the 4 Freedoms. Then you 
continue to play down all of the associated issues. You should really 
try the "less is more" approach, some time.


> "The problem starts once you do anything that encourages another person 
> to use non-free software, because in doing so, they will give up the 4 
> freedoms."
> 
> This is not a convincing argument, because you first need to prove that 
> these 4 freedoms matter. What problems are they solving?

How about the other way? What problems does _not_ having the 4 freedoms 
create?

Optional:
- You may not be allowed to run the program as you wish, for any 
purpose, i.e., an EULA might be in place.

Always:
- You cannot study and learn from the code.
- You cannot do even the simplest modification to adapt the program to 
you needs/wishes (aside from reverse engineering methods).
- You may not just hand copies to others, or point them to freely 
available sources to help them out / speed up collaboration.
- You may not join forces with the authors, e.g. by providing patches 
(aside from getting hired ...)
- You cannot modify the software for others.
- You cannot fork the project.
- You cannot pick up the project after the original author went away or 
perished.
- You will have a hard time working with data with no maintained, 
accessible program to read it left around.

Now some may say unnecessarily burdening users with those problems is 
wrong (/unjust/unethical/immoral).