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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