Free software dogmatism
nebajoth
nebajoth at gmail.com
Sat Aug 14 23:35:06 EDT 2010
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Perhaps I was quick to trigger on this. Your tone was never
unreasonable. This particular dialogue is a hot button issue with me. I
assume it is with many of us. I would be better off resisting the
tendency to flare up at its mention. I have noticed such restraint in
several of the participants of the irc channel and mailing list, and
heed to their example. I apologize.
On 08/14/2010 03:28 PM, Bas Wijnen wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 14, 2010 at 11:19:59AM -0400, nebajoth wrote:
>> The accusation of quietism on a development mailing list for
>> developing free hardware is a little ironic, no? Obviously there are
>> pragmatists here, and we are working diligently to increase hardware
>> freedom for ourselves and for you. Nobody here wants to slow the
>> tendency towards increasing freedom in our software and hardware,
>
> I'm sorry that my mail was received as an accusation. It was not meant
> as such. What I wrote about the "pragmatists" was meant for the extreme
> case, which I believe is not on this list (they're not interested in
> it). So please don't take it personally.
>
> I just felt I had to reply, because IMO the "fundamentalist" approach
> (with limits) isn't wrong, and I felt that it was described as such.
>
> Hans started in a way which gave me the impression that he would point
> out some flaws in the reasoning of both sides. Instead, he made it look
> like one of them was Right and the other was Wrong. IMO both have their
> good sides (and if followed to the extreme, they both have their bad
> sides as well). I wanted to point this out. I didn't mean to accuse
> anyone of being a Bad Person or something like that.
>
>> and I
>> would argue that it is actually the fundamentalist approach which
>> guarantees the lowest rate of development towards free hardware and
>> software. What the pragmatist realizes is that many innovations and
>> features make their appearance in a proprietary form. This fact is
>> implicitly acknowledged by the oft-repeated idea that we can COPY the
>> features of non-free software, as we produce our own free version of it.
>
> This is true, and it is indeed a reason for improvement of the free
> system. But only if the step to actually copy is made. What I am
> saying is that the pure pragmatist will just be happy with the
> proprietary version and use it. The pure idealist will never see the
> feature. You need a bit of both to get the improvement. :-)
>
> On Sat, Aug 14, 2010 at 06:21:33PM +0200, Hans Bezemer wrote:
>>> Actually, all definitions of free software I know are based on "do"s.
>>> You must be able to "use the software for any purpose", etc.
>>
>> Well Bas,
>>
>> The difference between "do" and "don't" is usually a question of proper
>> rephrasing. Let's put it this way: you don't tell me what to do and I do tell
>> that you don't. It'll make us both happy.
>
> As I wrote above, I didn't mean to tell you what to do. Sorry if it
> sounded that way. I fully agree that we can both do what we think is
> good and everyone will be happy. :-)
>
> Thanks,
> Bas
>
>
>
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