> I need more time to think. Time is up, the uneasy silence has to end, life has to go on. I feel obliged to reply to some statements that have been made, some of which are fundamentally in error. Some of these were made in private, but I hope nobody will be angry with me for quoting them. And I do not want to belittle anyone by not quoting him or her.
> This is the fundamental assumption I think many of the other > respondents have brought to this thread -- that a moral judgment > is private, personal and whenever possible should be respected. I have to most fervently disagree with this opinion. If moral were private it had no meaning at all. Moral must be shared by many to make sense. Sadly, this attitude is widespread nowadays, at least in the society I live in. Many people withdraw into privacy, closing their eyes and comforting themselves with their own morality - instead of making a difference. Often, people who demand ethics in public are chastised for their audacity. I know, being confronted with demands made by others can be uncomfortable and is rejected violently by many people. I firmly believe that this society can not survive if everybody thinks (s)he can always do as (s)he pleases. -- > I think you should not feel any pangs of conscience by writting > a good software. I don't. My conscience becomes important when I think about what else I could have done with the time I spent writing software in a moral-free space. -- > I respect your feelings that this war is wrong, but I think this > project is the wrong place to try to spread that message. Try as I might, I simply can not understand the logic behind this statement. How can a place that is appropriate for exchanging cat pictures - although it has nothing to do with the scope of fvwm, - be inappropriate for talking about life and death? -- > I feel I have no choice but to not install software with a > political message. Please do not blame that lack of choice on me. One always has the choices one chooses. If I had to step on the toes of one million people to save a single human life (*any* human life), I would do it withouth thinking twice and not feel guilty afterwards, although I would be sad about any dissent it brought. -- Some people introduced the terms 'good' and 'evil' into the discussion. I find the notion of good and evil not only ridiculous, but I think it is a dangerous simplification of reality. Armed conflicts and wars all over the world show it clearly. Many madmen claim to fight 'holy missions' for 'good' using it as an excuse to commit deeds considered 'evil' by many others. And they never even notice when their 'enemies' claim exactly the same for themselves, with the same rights, or rather the same lack of. No, the ethics I demand are not brought upon people by judgement of someone else. They can be reached by convention only, by spreading the idea. -- > Please let's stop that discussion. Please let's start again. I > know we can do that. Forgiving can be painful, but it makes > stronger. Sorry, I do not want to hurt anybody, but I can not do this yet. -- Finally, it has been noted by several people that making political (I still think ethical is the right term) statements in this place will not make any difference. I have to disagree, and I think the events of the last week prove it. But surely, it is not the best place to fight for peace either. -- I wish I could make the right decision now, but the turmoil inside me is too great at the moment. As I said before, the silence has to end. I will abstain from the list for a week, hoping to reach a decision by then. I expect that this list returns to the normal routine until then. Bye Dominik ^_^ ^_^ P.S.: I Noticed that I sometimes wrote the birthday was on 1st of June and sometimes 1st of July. I'm not sure which one is correct. Someone should check this (fvwm was first released as part of rxvt-0.5.something, I think). -- Dominik Vogt, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Visit the official FVWM web page at <URL:http://www.fvwm.org/>. To unsubscribe from the list, send "unsubscribe fvwm-workers" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To report problems, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
