[LAU] Some disturbing news

Paul Davis paul at linuxaudiosystems.com
Mon Jun 4 22:01:44 CEST 2018


On Mon, Jun 4, 2018 at 3:43 PM, Thorsten Wilms <self at thorstenwilms.com>
wrote:

> ​s:
> Given a software S under either non-free conditions as NS, or Free
> Software conditions as FS,
> any act of encouragement to a person to use NS,
> is to seek more power for the licensor and less for the user.
>

​you are defining "power" in a very specific way here.

going a little too far in the opposite direction:

Given a software S under either non-free conditions as NS, or Free software
conditions as FS,
an act of encouragement to a person to use NS ...
results in them being able to do all kinds of crazy stuff and use all kinds
of devices and interact with all kinds of services that would not be
possible as FS

is this seeking more or less power for the user? ​If you define "power"
with particular code-tinkering metrics, it clearly does not. But for most
users, current and future code-tinkering possibilities by themselves or
others are MASSIVELY discounted compared to "doing the shit i need to get
done right here and now". Yes, they are effectively trading in the 4
freedoms in the long run for expediency in the short run. But this is
entirely human behaviour and it isn't entirely clear that it is wrong in
any absolute sense.

You need a much broader moral framework to explain why it actually is
wrong, and that framework will go far beyond the 4 freedoms.
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