On Nov 24, 2006, at 2:39 PM, Julian Yap wrote:
On Thu, 2006-11-23 at 10:58 -1000, Jimen Ching wrote:
On Wed, 22 Nov 2006, Julian Yap wrote:
On Wed, 2006-11-22 at 13:25 -1000, Jimen Ching wrote:
YOU don't NEED to care. A lot of people don't NEED to care. As
long as
there are people who do care and are willing to fight for those
rights.
You'll continue to enjoy the benefits. That's how it worked in
the past.
That's how it's going to work in the future. What you're seeing
now is
just the process...
That takes the view that there's enough people fighting for
freedom in
the first place and that they will actually win.
True. Are you saying this view is wrong semantically, wrong
ethically, or
wrong in some other way?
Semantically, saying people don't need to care is wrong. It's like
saying, you don't need to vote. Just replace the word 'care' with
'vote' in your first paragraph.
In order for society to function, we must all express a basic level
of caring for, and empathizing with, our fellow human beings (as well as
other life forms on this planet, and, indeed, the planet itself.)
Radical ideas are often met with a response from the cultural immune
system. When somebody goes outside the cultural norms, the culture
tries to protect itself.
This is why we label people who express radical ideas (odd thoughts,
etc) as "insane" or perhaps just "eccentric". Its society working to
protect itself. Software should be Free (as in Freedom) is a
radical idea, as it works against the accepted norm of being able to
charge (again and again and again) for the product of one's labors.
It may well be, however,
that it is better for *society* (as a whole) for software to be
shared. In our society, the author of the software gets to make a
choice.
should we not honor that choice?
It's my observation that the number of people who fight (meaning
actively
doing something beyond writing to your congressman) are a lot less
than
the number of people who benefit. Are you suggesting otherwise?
Depends what side you're 'fighting for'. You could be fighting for
big
business in which case the number of people who benefit is a minority
(who then wield this power to do things like change laws so it stays
that way).
Frankly, in a representative republic (news flash: we do not live in
a *democracy* (nor do we want to!)) it doesn't take that many people
to change things.
Also, when I said peopled aren't needed to care about these
issues, it
doesn't mean they aren't wanted. If people want to join the
fight, I'm
sure they will be welcomed.
True.
We're speaking to Linux and Unix users here and to say that they don't
need to care or be aware of the issues we are talking about isn't
correct.
Otherwise, you can disregard any thread in this mailing list that
talks
about such issues and continue going with the lowest cost vendor.
course, if they go out of business, you may wish you could maintain
the software they sold you...
jim
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