Hi, [I've started new thread because discussion was deviating from the contents of original post] On 2/11/07, Kenneth Gonsalves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On 11-Feb-07, at 2:37 AM, Debarshi Ray wrote: > > > Since I am not installing GMail on my hard drive and running an > > instance on my machine, I am not bothered too much. :-) > > so its ok to use non-free software as long as it doesnt pollute your > hard drive? Is this the official FSF position?
Life would have been easier if it was just these two questions which needed to be answered to declare one as a Free Software guy/fan/fanboi, FSF fan/fanboi, RMS fan/fanboi, or whatever. Here are my set of questions: 1. Is it ethical to use Non-Free codecs to watch/listen videos/audios? 2. Is it ethical to install Non-Free plugins to watch contents on various websites most famous at present being YouTube.com? 3. Is it ethical to use Free Software on top of Non-Free systems? 4. Is it ethical to use Non-Free software on top of Free systems? 5. Is it ethical to share songs, Non-Free Softwares, videos, ebooks, etc. assuming that you have legal copies of these? 6. Is it ethical to download songs/movies(pr0ns included ;-)) from the vast resource that is available on the internet? 7. Is it ethical to work for a company that requires you to sign an NDA or develop/work on Non-Free software considering that you couldn't find a job that will pay you for writing Free Software, but at the same you contribute by writing Free Software (or at least trying and learning to hope to contribute some time) working late at night after job hours or holidays? 8. Is it ethical to use a Non-Free Software to know its features or to reverse engineer it and incorporate those features in a Free Software? 9. Is it ethical to use a Non-Free Software to migrate a company from a Non-Free platform to Free one? 10. <one can add more here> :-) Questions are not just about giving an answer in terms of 0 or 1. It's about level of compromise you are ready to make, kind of sacrifice you are prepared to go through and what ethics/morality mean to you, which again depends on lots of factors. Not all questions above are related to software because Free Software Movement is not just about software as opposed to popular beliefs and as announced by *someone* at the *most famous* Free Software event of india (one is free to sense sarcasm in between the lines, I don't care much and I am ready to accept flames). To make sure that no one gets confused, I'm a Free Software guy/fan/fanboi, RMS/FSF fan/fanboi. For those who are wondering what *fanboi* means, it's a special term created by bunch of people who think one can talk about Free Software only when he/she has a Free Software to show under his/her belt and forget that writing software is not the only way to contribute to Free Software movement. Last but not the least, we need to talk about Free Software and advocate about it as much as we can, only point being one should not preach what he/she doesn't follow. Those who think reply looks more like of a troll than anything else can just ignore it ( well..they will do it anyways :-)). Regards Nikhil Prabhakar _______________________________________________ ilugd mailinglist -- ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org/
