What's so important about the ethics of free software?

2016-12-18 Thread J.B. Nicholson
Charles Cossé wrote: Statements like "Free Software supports education, proprietary software forbids" [1] strike me as outrageous and counter-productive. A proprietary program's license is designed to offer no permission for its users to learn how that program

Re: What's so important about the ethics of free software?

2016-12-18 Thread Charles Cossé
On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 10:48 PM, J.B. Nicholson wrote: > Charles Cossé wrote: > >> Statements like "Free Software supports education, proprietary software >> forbids" [1] strike me as outrageous and >> counter-productive. >> > > A proprietary program's license is

Re: What's so important about the ethics of free software?

2016-12-19 Thread Alessandro Rubini
Charles: > You actually believe that the > user's "rights" exceed mine as the author? I'm willing to bet that there > is at least one other person out there in the FSF(E) community that is > willing to stand-up and publicly challenge that assertion. Anyone? Here. As an individual, not representi

Re: What's so important about the ethics of free software?

2016-12-19 Thread Jonas Oberg
Hi everyone, as Alessandro, I would like to give some thoughts to this discussion, but they are my thoughts and not necessarily reflecting the opinion of neither the FSF or FSFE. > FSF(E) is making an unproveable moral statement which alienates people > from its mission. I believe it's difficult

Re: What's so important about the ethics of free software?

2016-12-19 Thread J.B. Nicholson
Charles Cossé wrote: Not necessarily. If I license it with a proprietary license, yet still publish the complete source, then your statement it factually incorrect. Giving someone a copy of a program's source code doesn't grant them permission to create derivative works, distribute said sourc

Re: What's so important about the ethics of free software?

2016-12-19 Thread Charles Cossé
On Mon, Dec 19, 2016 at 11:45 AM, J.B. Nicholson wrote: > Charles Cossé wrote: > >> Not necessarily. If I license it with a proprietary license, yet still >> publish the complete source, then your statement it factually incorrect. >> > > Giving someone a copy of a program's source code doesn't g

Re: What's so important about the ethics of free software?

2016-12-19 Thread Jonas Oberg
Hi Charles, J.B.; > If you are going to quote me then please quote the relevant context, which > was: I will agree with Charles here. J.B., I believe you misread Charles' intention. Alternatively, you mean to say that only through the acts of sharing, and modifying a program, can you learn how it

Re: What's so important about the ethics of free software?

2016-12-19 Thread Timothy Pearson
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 12/19/2016 02:14 PM, Charles Cossé wrote: > If I write a 2 line program that prints "hello world" and don't license > it under a FLOSS license, the user is still free to use it or not use > it. According to FSF(E) doctrine, however, I am "unjust"

Re: What's so important about the ethics of free software?

2016-12-19 Thread Charles Cossé
Dear Jonas, Hello, and thank you for your thoughtful replies. When I refer to "unjust" etc., one recent place that I am taking my info from the RMS video that I watched, carefully, which is posted towards the end of J.B.'s blog . In that video he says "... other sof

Re: What's so important about the ethics of free software?

2016-12-19 Thread David Gerard
On 19 December 2016 at 21:12, Charles Cossé wrote: > But it's been interesting to debate this ethics business, and I do prefer > your personal position in the last paragraph of your previous post, which > sounds much less rigid and more inclusive. And I'm essentially asking > whether it would

Re: What's so important about the ethics of free software?

2016-12-19 Thread David Gerard
On 19 December 2016 at 21:50, David Gerard wrote: > design remains a current topic today, e.g. https://neveragain.tech - I ah, that doesn't work (SSL certs on github pages problem) - try http://neveragain.tech tl;dr you probably won't get ethics out of tech any time soon. - d. __

Re: What's so important about the ethics of free software?

2016-12-19 Thread Paul Boddie
On Monday 19. December 2016 21.14.22 Charles Cossé wrote: > > I was not referring to legalities, but responding to your claim that I was > somehow forbidding them to learn how the program works. If you have the > complete source in-hand then you have the ability to learn how it works. > Your stat

Re: Re: What's so important about the ethics of free software?

2016-12-20 Thread Geza Giedke
Charles Cossé wrote on 19.12.2016 08:20: > On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 10:48 PM, J.B. Nicholson > wrote: > Perhaps not (I can't say for sure without looking into the licenses > of the program dependencies), but your intentions shouldn't limit > what people ca