> Moral arguments with respect to software are vaccous. What are your reasons for being on this list?
Free software developer for over 20 years. Occasional FSF/FSFE paying member. FLOSS advocate since long before the term "FLOSS" (which I don't like), circa 2005. Why did you do all these things? I'm not saying I agree with the communist perspective, but I do think there are ethical reasons for not producing and for rejecting proprietary software. Go ahead, explain the ethical reasons, or better, the immorality of proprietary software and how libre software is somehow moral. So there's three main schools of ethics, deontological, consequensialist, and virtue ethics. I kind of suck at building out Kant, but for deontological the argument might be something like: the user uses his software as a tool to further his own ends, if you remove his agency in using his tool for your own ends you are using him as mere means breaking the categorical imperative, therefore unethical. I don't think that's an empty argument. For consequential, I don't really like this perspective but it might be true. That goes something like: free software is generally going to create more utility than proprietary software, considering how the user is mistreated, how vendor lock-in affects whole industries, etc. etc. vs profits for the company and the marginal utility of the proprietary software vs a free version of the same thing if it already exists, therefore proprietary software is unethical. Again, not really a fan of this one, but I don't think it's empty. I like virtue ethics and I like rolling my own, and I came up with this perspective: Really there is something fundamentally human about using tools, just like speaking and walking upright. We use tools, adapt them to our needs and disseminate them through our community. That's part of how we've been so successful as a species, particularly over neanderthal. Looking at how we use software as a tool, if we restrict users as is done with proprietary software, we are attacking an essential part of their humanity, making them pathetic, so we shouldn't do that. Also as users, if we are really excellent, we would be able to stop others from making us pathetic by rejecting attempts to mistreat us in this way. Would you please help me come up with a cool new name for ourselves?
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