Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on January 10, 2004 12:59 AM
"but businesses exist to fill their own belly. We don't always agree with that, and aren't always happy with that, but it's not 'wrong'."
You got that totally wrong, and this is not socialist principals or anything - kust plain good sence.
A business is created not so that it feeds itself, but so that it generates more income and maximises resources in the commercial space for the benefit of the people working for the business and the community that the business works in. A business is not a stand-alone entity. And when that becomes the case where a business is only for the justification of itself, we get a world where corporate (read business) interests looks after itself and not the community. As a small example, why are most people in the US so concerned (and against) businesses sending jobs overseas ? After all the business is trying to fend for itself (by maximising its profits and minimising expenses). But no, the collective chagrin is because teh business is not firstly catering to the community itself. Note : I am not debating the outsourcing model here, but just trying to show why a business is for. For all that it may matter, outsourcing may be a way to serve the community - a very warped on though.
your quote - "It's great to advocate for 'rights', but most people don't see software development as a political process. Some developers do. Users typically don't."
Thats because we have been shown only one way of doing it - by businesses so that they can feed themselves.
Why is it that your civic rights (to use normal tools in your day to day life in any way you want) are "rights" that you accept as a politically granted right to you but now rights to use software that you buy in any way you want not accepted as a "right" to be granted to you ? Thats because while civic rights were inbuilt into the fabric of society when we thought up governments (which were meant to work FOR US) and constitutions, software wasn't so since its inception only came into existamnce in the last few hundred years AFTER businesses were formed to work FOR US, but later got abbrogated to become entities which were unto themselves. Hence the "software rights" were not inbuilt into this fabric of commerce, unlike the others "rights" that you so take for granted.
Hence this user perception taht software is not meat to be free is just that - a perception. Software neednt be that way and that what RMS is trying to make it to be - a free right just like any of your other freedoms for which you stand up for when the government wants to take it away from you politically.
And allways RMS has given the freedom to choose his model of software or NOT.
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Re:Real products v. Philosophical byproducts
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on January 10, 2004 12:59 AMYou got that totally wrong, and this is not socialist principals or anything - kust plain good sence.
A business is created not so that it feeds itself, but so that it generates more income and maximises resources in the commercial space for the benefit of the people working for the business and the community that the business works in. A business is not a stand-alone entity. And when that becomes the case where a business is only for the justification of itself, we get a world where corporate (read business) interests looks after itself and not the community.
As a small example, why are most people in the US so concerned (and against) businesses sending jobs overseas ? After all the business is trying to fend for itself (by maximising its profits and minimising expenses). But no, the collective chagrin is because teh business is not firstly catering to the community itself. Note : I am not debating the outsourcing model here, but just trying to show why a business is for. For all that it may matter, outsourcing may be a way to serve the community - a very warped on though.
your quote - "It's great to advocate for 'rights', but most people don't see software development as a political process. Some developers do. Users typically don't."
Thats because we have been shown only one way of doing it - by businesses so that they can feed themselves.
Why is it that your civic rights (to use normal tools in your day to day life in any way you want) are "rights" that you accept as a politically granted right to you but now rights to use software that you buy in any way you want not accepted as a "right" to be granted to you ?
Thats because while civic rights were inbuilt into the fabric of society when we thought up governments (which were meant to work FOR US) and constitutions, software wasn't so since its inception only came into existamnce in the last few hundred years AFTER businesses were formed to work FOR US, but later got abbrogated to become entities which were unto themselves. Hence the "software rights" were not inbuilt into this fabric of commerce, unlike the others "rights" that you so take for granted.
Hence this user perception taht software is not meat to be free is just that - a perception.
Software neednt be that way and that what RMS is trying to make it to be - a free right just like any of your other freedoms for which you stand up for when the government wants to take it away from you politically.
And allways RMS has given the freedom to choose his model of software or NOT.
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