Re: SCO laying an ambush for the GPL?

[Rui Miguel Seabra]

On Tue, 2004-07-20 at 17:56 +0200, Alexander Terekhov wrote:
> Rui Miguel Seabra wrote:
> > On Tue, 2004-07-20 at 16:57 +0200, Alexander Terekhov wrote:
> > > http://www.kimsoft.com/dprk.htm
> > > ("Communism Is Not Dead")
> > 
> > You are an idiot if you compare freedom for all with dictatorships.

I stand corrected. There are other ways to be an idiot! Like not having
the capacity to keep a rational thought.

> http://www.softpanorama.org/Copyright/License_classification/social_roots_of_GPL.shtml
> 
> <quote>
> 
> The fundamental postulates of Stallmanism are revolving around 
> certain "unalienable rights" for software users. If we assume 
> that the "right" in philosophical sense is a moral principle 
> defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social 
> context, then the concept of rights without property is somewhat 
> questionable platform

Questionable? Why? Property only makes sense on materials with resource
limits. That's why gold and diamonds are so expensive, for instance.

Thought and immaterial representation of ideas are boundless. The only
limit is imagination.

>                       similar to other "collectivist" social 
> utopias which historically provided the terrifying experience of 
> human rights abuse.

Here is the strawman argument! The idiocy of glueing freedom for all
users to dictatorships. This is, of course, an absurd strawman argument,
trying to raise the fear of one thing into a totally opposite thing.

Dicatorships and freedom for all are mutually exclusive.

>                     History had shown that hypertrophy of 
> collectivist rights makes an individual too dependent upon other 
> people, especially leaders ("cult of personality"),
 
If one thing can be said of Richard Stallman's personality, is that it
doesn't create a cult out of it. Virtually all human beings are
uncapable of such a straight course of actions. He doesn't wonder a
milimeter out of freedom for all users of software.

>                                                     including 
> leaders wrongdoing, and thus implicitly undermines the right for 
> individuality which is a fundamental contradiction because, in 
> essence, all rights are individual rights.

Where could Free Software, or even the GNU GPL, undermine the right for
individuality? If anything, the opposite was proven. In many software
projects forks have existed, some to wither and die, others become
successful, and others merge back. This is a totally absurd and
groundless fear mongering (just like what I've learned to expect from
you, Alexander Terekhov).

>                                            This hypertrophy also 
> objectively leads to the despotism and corruption of the leaders 
> and George Orwell coined the underling fundamental contradiction 
> in his immortal quote "All pigs are equal, but some are more 
> equal than others." 

? The FSF defends freedom for all, not more freedom to some.
Of course some of the freedoms require a) technical knowledge, b)
financial power to get a), or c) social skills to get a) for free.

I don't suppose you see us all knowing how to make shoes, but anyone can
go and start making shoes. Without a) they might come out bad, without
b) you may not be able to get someone who does them good and c) will
likely not get you anywhere because shoes are a physical good, which is
normally tied to limited resources which cost to obtain and modify,
requiring b).

>                     It is interesting to note that in autumn 
> 1996, the FSF experienced a full-scale staff defection, blamed 
> in large part on Stallman. Brian Youmans, a FSF employee hired 
> by Peter Salus just before the resignations, recalls the scene: 
> "At one point, Peter [Salus] was the only staff member working 
> in the office." [Williams2002]. Further discussion of 
> philosophical issues of interconnections between notions of 
> "freedom" and "property" is beyond the scope of the paper, but 
> we will touch another side of the problem of interaction of 
> individual rights with the collectivist vision later when we 
> will discuss the interaction of GPL with the acknowledgement of 
> the work of others.

I am not familliar with Williams2002, but when talking about freedom,
many think that to be able to enforce restrictions upon others is a
freedom. It is not it is a power that is forced upon others.

Many are not able to make that distinction because they are looking
solely to their belly buttons.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or-power.html

Rui

-- 
+ No matter how much you do, you never do enough -- unknown
+ Whatever you do will be insignificant,
| but it is very important that you do it -- Gandhi
+ So let's do it...?

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