Proprietary software as result of psychological problems

În 2013-12-22 12:09, name at domain a scris:
> Excuse me, but did you ever heard of so-called "situational ethics"?
> There aren't absolute unethical actions.

There are a lot of examples of absolute unethical actions. Human slavery
is one of them and it's forbidden by international human rights treaties
and it's fought against it all over the world.

> For example, I consider meat is unethical in my current
> situation.

I don't care what you do in your personal life, nor should you about
what I do in mine. If I use public software libraries to develop a piece
of software to fit my needs and I am its sole user because I don't
release it to the public (nor I give it to acquaintances), it's no
business of yours. It doesn't affect you that I write and use my
not-released software. Free or nonfree labels don't apply for this piece
of software.

> But if I would need meat for my survival, then I will
> eat it. Even if it will be a human meat.

This will not justify cannibalism, which is an unethical practice by all
standards.

> And nobody can force anybody to take so-called "ethical job".

No individual can, but a law can. Many states consider prostitution to
be unethical and the forbid it by laws. Regardless of what you think
(that is ethical or not), it is forbidden by law. And the policemen are
enforcing the law. The same goes with drug trafficking.

However, because there is no such a law and proprietary software
distribution is legal, nobody can ask policemen to give fines to
software companies for restricting users and to take into custody
proprietary software managers and developers.

But what we in the free software community is to blame people who help
enslaving users. We need to condemn all proprietary software practices.
And we should never take proprietary software developers' side, like
they are some poor computer scientists who only follow orders because
otherwise they (and their family) would starve and die of hunger.

> That is her/his personal decision.

Her/his personal decision affects other people, because (s)he is working
on user subjugating software. It can be the personal decision of a
President or a Prime Minister to declare war on a neighbouring country
and the law can allow this, because it's her/his right by Constitution.
But this doesn't mean it doesn't affect tens, hundreds of millions of
people and that is ethical, instead of negotiating and peacefully
settling any differences between the two countries.

> Beside, meat is ethical in YOUR opinion.

I raise a sheep and sacrifice it and eat it. It doesn't affect you.
Whether what I am doing is ethical or not for you, it doesn't hurt you I
eat my sheep.

I write a piece of software for myself and I use it all my life without
releasing it. It doesn't affect you. Whether what I am doing is ethical
or not for you, it doesn't hurt you I use my software only for myself.

In contrast, if I write a piece of software and I make it public (I
release it) under a proprietary license and you use my software, it
affects you. I am unethical and you can clearly see that, because I
don't allow you to install it on multiple machines and to modify it to
better serve your needs. My personal decision is affecting you, me being
an unethical software developer hurts you as a my software user. I have
control over you and we are both humans. You depend only on me and
that's wrong. I am anti-social with you and you can see that.

> I have only one
> choice. I must convince you that giving up meat will fit your
> egotistical interests. For example, "You know, in average vegetarians
> have longer lifespan than meat-eaters, blah-blah-blah".

Right. And if that's why I would avoid meat, it doesn't mean I would
never eat meat again. I can let go to 10 additional minutes of my life
for a special occasion, like at a dinner with my parents whom I didn't
see for a whole year or a reunion with my former colleagues from
university whom I didn't see for 10 years. The same goes with alcohol,
tobacco and so on.

Practical reasons (even if they are true) are not enough for a human
being to not do something, like eating meat or using/developing
proprietary software. It's not a strong enough reason, because we humans
don't always follow doctors' orders. But we certainly don't want to live
with the guilt of doing something unethical which will haunt us for the
rest of our lives, like eating human meat. That is because we have
conscience.

> That is also
> true for FSF-lovers movement.

Don't forget you are using one of free software movement's forums of a
FSF-endorsed free distribution of GNU+Linux. You are using this forum to
attack the reason while Trisquel is developed, to challenge the free
software philosophy and to turn our users' interest away from the free
software movement to the "open source" camp.

You are directly and shamelessly working publicly against the free
software movement using it's own communication channels. I am sure you
are aware of that.

> If you want to change the world, then
> you must swallow your pride and try to convince developers of
> proprietary software that FLOSS more profitable for them.

That might not be true and not even generally true, and you have no way
of proving such a statement. And like in the case of eating meat, this
might convince proprietary software developers to prefer developing free
software rather than continue developing proprietary software, but it
doesn't mean they will stop restricting users and never look back. What
usually happens (and you can see this in many if not most of projects
that call themselves "open source"), they distribute proprietary
software along with free software. It is actually the reason why
Trisquel was forked from Debian and later from Ubuntu and the reason why
this forum you are using against the movement even exist.

So it doesn't mean they will stop what they did in the past. Especially
when your doctor discovers you have cancer which has developed in the
last 5 years, although half of your life you have been a vegetarian
(let's say, for 20 years). Or especially when you are forced to declare
bankruptcy after trying for 5 years to make a profit with free software.

--
Tiberiu C. Turbureanu
Președinte, Fundația Ceata
Telefon: +40-761-810-100
GPG: 8B51 53CB 354E 3049 FAE9 3260 F033 8452 4154 1967

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În 2013-12-19 12:36, name at domain a scris:
> You can't make money just from selling free software.

You can.

> You will sell a
> few copies, then free (as in money) downloads will be all over the
> internet.

Let them be, nobody should people from sharing software and improve it.
What is important in a free software commercial distribution is to build
the *trust* by continuously developing and innovating that free software
and by investing in its stability and security. Then users will much
prefer buying copies (in binary form and along with it in full source
code form) from your distribution, because you are a driving force for
that free software so an meritocratic authority for its user base.

> The best thing to do would be to free it after a decent
> amount of money has been made,

I consider liberation funds to be unethical. A software developer should
never restrict its users, not in the beginning (until she rises the
amount of money she requests) not ever.

> or to do free software development as
> a part time job.

If the part time job involves proprietary software development, then
it's wrong. It's wrong to be anti-social. If you are making a living
from being anti-social, then you should think to change your ways or at
least change your area of activity. Don't help corporations gain more
power over computer users.

--
Tiberiu C. Turbureanu
Președinte, Fundația Ceata
Telefon: +40-761-810-100
GPG: 8B51 53CB 354E 3049 FAE9 3260 F033 8452 4154 1967

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