> From: Rui Miguel Silva Seabra > Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2008 12:48 PM > To: Openbsd Misc (E-mail) > Subject: Re: FW: Real men don't attack straw men > > > On Thu, Jan 03, 2008 at 12:05:37PM -0500, Stuart VanZee wrote: > > Wow... it is incredibly telling that you chose a game, a pretty > > obscure one at that as far as I can tell, to base your argument on. > > > > The world will fall because OpenBSD "recommends" that people > > install a game... a game that is free to copy and use for non- > > commercial use (I looked it up), and you had to go through almost > > the ENTIRE package collection all the way to the Zs before you > > could find such a pitiful example. > > Because they are such pitiful cases, they could be easily removed and > remove Stallman's objections to list OpenBSD at the recommended Free > Software operating systems, right? More promotion of OpenBSD would be > good, right? >
CASE... not cases, you have come up with one CASE. One example, IF I chose to believe in your modification of the original statement that sparked this thread (which I don't) and believe that Mr. Stallman was speaking of non-free software in packages your side of the argument gets smaller and smaller. See what happens when you have to prove your argument? It all boils down to you having an issue with ONE package. A game at that. Not production software, or a web browser, or an email package, a game. A single game that, from the tone of your argument must be destroying all that free software stands for. Guess what... I read the license text for that game and it sounds exactly like what your precious GPL would say if it was boiled down to it's most basic components. You can have the source code... You can modify the source code... You just can't use the source code for your commercial application. Sound familiar? That is almost exactly what I was told by a GPL Zealot that the GPL lic was all about when I was first introduced to Linux so many years ago. So your example of why OpenBSD isn't free is a farce. It wouldn't bother me if the OpenBSD devs decided to axe that package. If I wanted to use it I could install it from ports just fine, I usually do anyway, but the argument that they should do so to fit yours or Mr Stallman's ideals of what free software is about are wrong on so many levels. It comes down to trying to force others to live by your ideals. It's just like the christian croud thinking that it's ok to discriminate against the pagans because it would take such a small thing for them (us) to convert to christianity. Never mind that many of us pagans view christianity as a violent death cult, so why would we ever want to. You say that it would be such a small thing for the OpenBSD project to do to live up to your ideals when it comes to free software but quite frankly, I think that many of the OpenBSD crowd think that your ideals are wrong. Freedom is all about freedom of choice, If that means people choose non-free software on OpenBSD at least they are using OpenBSD which is in itself free software. OpenBSD with ALL the non-free software from ports (yes, really ports) would still be a much more free system than any Windows system using as much free apps as a person could find for it. > Stopping this childish-tantrum regarding the FSF would also > be very much > more productive. > childish-tantrum? You know, when you resort to attacking the character of the other persons argument rather than argue the facts of your case it means you have pretty much lost the debate and have nothing more to say. > > This discussion all started because Mr. Stallman very publicly > > stated that OpenBSD was non-free and distributed non-free software > > in it's ports tree. > > He didn't say OpenBSD was non-free, but that it distributed non-free > Software. > > Looking at > ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/4.2/packages/i386/zangband-2 > >... seems to me pretty a pretty clear case. > Ok... I get it... You are saying that zangband is such an important piece of software that it alone is the cause of the downfall of free software. Because OpenBSD distributes zangband nobody has any reason to install a free OS or switch from MS Office to free office production software. No... wait... I don't get it. zangband is a GAME. It could fall off the face of the earth and nobody would blink. The few people who play it would move on to the next game. I can't believe that this thread has gone on this long and this one GAME is what it is all about. Oh wait.... it really isn't, but when we boil the argument down, it does become the final stand for a free software zealot who didn't realize that he didn't have a real position in the first case s
