Re: sustainable development

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

Hi Steve Paesani, 

Am Donnerstag, 10. September 2009 03:04:13 schrieb steve paesani:
> I have a real need to express my ideas about what is ethical and what is
> not.And I can guarantee that I am not joking around.

Neither am I and the FSF doesn't joke around either. 

> The question is clear: Where does the FSF stand on software developers
>  being paid to work?

Simple: Developers should be paid for doing ethical work. For example about 
half the Linux kernel hackers are being paid for their ethical work. 

> Here is another clear question: Does the FSF purport or not porport slave
> labor?

That question is rethorical and useless. You can read the answer from my 
answer to your next question. 

> Here is yet another: Do those who run the FSF believe in and promote
> slavery?

No. They don't believe in slavery, neither the slavery of the developer, nor 
the slavery of the user. 

Unfree software strips the user of his right to control his own computer, so 
it is a shackle which takes freedom away from him. 

If you have to steal peoples freedom for being paid, your work is unethical. 

That doesn't mean that it can't be necessary for your survival, but it is 
unethical nontheless and the free software foundation won't support it. 

Many people who work for the mafia also need the money to survive, but I'd be 
glad to see the mafia disappear nontheless. It would reduce costs for shop 
owners and restaurants, and in turn more people could make money ethically as 
shop owners and cooks. 

Even though many free software developers are being paid for their work 
nowadays, very many are still working on it in their free time because they 
believe that a world with free software is a better world. For this they allow 
*you* to use *their* work for *free*, as long as you adher to their simple 
rule: "Don't steal from the world what we gave as a present." 

There are many schools now which have more money for paying teachers, books 
and so on because they can use the work people did for free, and german towns 
are saving money in administration by using free software, so they can spend 
more on doing social work and schools, and this whole system would break down 
if we allowed people to take our free work and put shackles on it, so schools 
would have to pay again. 

> I can go on.
> Yet as I have asked before, I ask again,
> Where does the FSF stand on people getting paid to work?

People should be paid for doing ethically right work. 

They shouldn't be forced to steal the freedom of others to make their money. 
That's the goal for which we invest much of our free time. 

It's as simple as that. 

As long as many people buy unfree software, you might be forced to program 
unfree software to make a living (and most free software developers today do 
that - some in the hope that one day they won't have to do it anymore, because 
people will buy only free software), but when you improve free software to 
make a living, you have to adher to its rules. 

Most programmers today are slavers who take freedom away from the users of the 
programs they write, but most free software programmers work in their free 
time to lift these shackles again and create a world where they get paid to do 
ethically right work. 

The work we do for creating a better and more ethical computing environment 
now begins to pay off and more and more people switch to pure free software 
systems where they have more freedom. Free software now is about as good as 
unfree software, and in many respects it is better, and more and more 
companies see that they can make more money by working ethically right than by 
stealing peoples freedom. All this is because many people work in their free 
time at improving free software. 

For example the desktop KDE is the work of a community of over 400 developers, 
as is the Linux distribution I use (Gentoo). Similarly I spend about 5 to 20 
hours a week for improving various free software projects via bug reports, 
forum-moderation, documentation and similar (like answering your message). 

If you want to betray us to use our free work for stealing peoples freedom, 
expect our wrath. And remember that our licenses are strong. We can and will 
use copyright law to protect the freedom we and the people before us created. 

On the other hand, if you find a way to make money while adhering to the 
licenses, you will gladly have our support (as far as we can give it - we have 
to make a living, too). 

Best wishes, 
Arne

> On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 1:36 PM, Arne Babenhauserheide 
<address@hidden>wrote:
> > Am Samstag, 15. August 2009 02:34:58 schrieb steve paesani:
> > > I think the micorkernel is neat and may work on it
> > > however I would like to use a 'dev'comp' license that affords
> > > that the software's development costs be compensated through
> > > sales.
> >
> > Please have a look at the success of LimeWire:
> > - http://limewire.org
> > - http://limewire.com
> >
> > They sell a completely GPL licensed Gnutella p2p program, and they make
> > really
> > good money off it.
> >
> > The means they use is to provide a Pro version which offers improved
> > performance by some changes which everyone could do himself in the
> > sources.
> >
> > But because it is much more convenient to simply pay a small fee to get
> > the changes that to do them or find a changed program (and be sure it's
> > safe), people buy the Pro version.
> >
> > To duplicate that success you could, for example, regularly create tested
> > snapshots and sell these (along with the corresponding sources).
> >
> > Also people might buy packaged disks and similar.
> >
> > Naturally others could then just resell your snapshots (but since your
> > packaged parts are physical, they can't be copied easily), and include
> > your work in the main distribution, but as long as you keep creating new
> > and improved snapshots, you can become a reference source of specialized
> > versions.
> >
> > You won't be able to create a self-running money machine, though.
> >
> > > I realize this goes against the idea of  free software
> >
> > Then all I wrote above might be moot, because you think yourself, that
> > your idea is one which I would call unethical. Please go and think of an
> > ethical way to make money - or bug some BSD licensed project.
> >
> > Best wishes,
> > Arne
> >
> > --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
> > Unpolitisch sein
> > heißt politisch sein,
> > ohne es zu merken.
> > - Arne (http://draketo.de)
> > --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
> 

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- 
Unpolitisch sein
heißt politisch sein, 
ohne es zu merken. 
- Arne (http://draketo.de)
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

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