Richard Stallman wrote: > By using Oracle, you're giving up your freedom. It may be convenient, > or even profitable, but it isn't right.
that, i believe, is a debatable issue. we all believe in the freedom of speech, but yet society accepts the fact that this right is restricted in certain ways. for example, if i start working for a certain company, i accept that there are limits to what i can publically say about that company. if i publically present that company in a negative way, it would generally be considered acceptable if my employer were to fire me. now, one might argue that it is therefore immoral to enter into an employer-employee relationship. however, such relationships are inevitable in our society (and generally considered to be more moral than one alternative, slavery.) my point is, giving up certain freedoms in a limited manner may be a valid choice from a pragmatic point of view. and that is how i tend to see proprietary software: as a valid choice that can be made on practical grounds. i agree that in principle, unfreeness is not good, and should be restricted as much as possible. therefore mechanisms should be in place to ensure that the unfreeness doesn't spread beyond a certain level of (practical) acceptability. for example, no-one should be forced to use proprietary software. (again, the employer-employee-relationship can, in my view, be an exception to this rule.) this means, for example, that data storage and data transfer should be handled with unpatented, open standards for data formats and communications protocols, so that it is possible to develop free software that understands these formats and protocols. only in this way can it be prevented that someone is not *forced* to use, say, MS-Word to write and submit a job application. but the right to choose to use MS-Word (and thereby by his own choice give up some of the freedoms that he is entitled to), should not be taken away. -- Joost Kremers [EMAIL PROTECTED] Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht EN:SiS(9) _______________________________________________ gnu-emacs-sources mailing list gnu-emacs-sources@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-emacs-sources