Re: How do Free software developers get money?

[mike3]

On Feb 3, 6:45 am, "Alfred M. Szmidt" <a...@gnu.org> wrote:
>    Yes, I want the questions taken seriously, since I want a real and
>    understandable answer so I can put the questions to bed, I want to
>    learn!
>
> The best way is not to ask questions, but to find them yourself.

I know, but sometimes I just cannot do that. If I found the answers
myself
already, I would not be asking.

But the problem is I have not been _able_ to find those answers to
these
_specific_ questions. I've looked at the FSF pages, looked through
some of
Stallman's essays, but haven't found it! Furthermore, I was also
asking
for help in understanding an answer I was given here on this thread.

Where could I go to find the answers, then?

If I try to hypothesize what the answer might be, then I'll have to
consult
with someone to see if I got it right, which means coming to this
group, and
then I'll be dismissed as a troll.

If that's wrong, and you *want* to hear my own hypothesis though, then
the
best I have so far is this. The mere _creation_ of proprietary
software is not
what is unethical, so the job the programmer has creating proprietary
software
is not unethical -- what is, however, is the _usage_ of that software
to take
away someone's freedom. Furthermore, when you write software for a
company (although I don't know
this for a fact since I haven't worked for a software company but it
seems
reasonable. I may be wrong, and will accept a correction.), you do not
have
a say in how it's going to be licensed and distributed -- that is up
to the
company, so they're the ones who use your creation to "subjugate" the
freedom of the users, not you. They are the ones that make it
proprietary,
not the programmer. Did I get that all right? The reasoning here
is that it is the subjugation of the user's freedom that is the issue
that makes
"proprietary software" unethical. Where I was, and still am having
trouble
though, is with the fact that it seems one is _aiding_ someone to take
away the freedom of the user, even if one does not do that themselves.
Isn't
that unethical too? So then what's going on here? I'm really not
getting it.

As for what David Kastrup here meant by "balancing benefits and
harms",
I'm still not quite sure what that means and he hasn't responded, so,
argh..... :( The hypothesis I had there was that this meant that hte
job
harms people but you offset that by making free software. But that
doesn't
seem to excuse the "wrong": it's like saying I can rob banks and
"offset"
that by giving back some of the money I get, or giving away money I
make using the robbed money. (It also sounds like Al Gore's stuff
about
"offsetting" the CO2 emissions from his luxurious lifestyle by getting
more
green energy to be produced.)