Re: [Fsuk-manchester] Ubuntu !free

[Dave Crossland]

2008/5/21 Noah Slater <address@hidden>:
> On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 06:57:59PM +0100, Dave Crossland wrote:
>
> Talking about "freedoms" without clarification gives rise to...
> ... the perception of moral absolutism! Hehe, sorry to bang on about this.

I see your http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_absolutism and raise you
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_universalism :-)

Or rather, the perception of moral absolutism is astute, although not
totally accurate.

Just as there are religions that are not morally absolute, one can be
morally absolute without being religious. Morally absolute religions
treat their religious authority figures' ethics systems as abolutes.
So-called Moral Universalists have no religious authority figures, and
instead use logic to deduce ethical principles that are universal to
humanity, comprehensively applied to all acts, non-arbitrary, and
logically consistent. Plato and Aristotle are famous moral
universalists, and they opposed the moral relativism of the Sophists.
While I'm certainly not suggesting we treat them like a religious
authority figure, I encourage you to

(I try to prepend "software" to the word freedom in these discussions
consisently, apologies if that was unclear.)

>> If proprietary software is the only way to do something, then I really
>> do tell people that they should not use that program, even though that
>> they have no option, and if their job depends on it, they should
>> refuse that job and get another job which respects their freedom -
>> there are plenty of these jobs, I have one, its no big deal to get one
>> in our industry.
>
> Having a job which doesn't involve non-free software is a nice ideal that a 
> lot
> of people get to enjoy, some don't though and changing jobs is not easy for
> everyone.

Changing from proprietary software is itself not easy, either. Yet we
advocate that :-)

> As a young intelligent white male I feel your perspective of the job
> market might, possibly, be a _little_ skewed. ;)

I don't mean to suggest you are racist or sexist, but I reject racism
and sexism so I'll decline to comment on this.

Sometimes people who know me say that my perspective is skewed because
I won a kind of lottery and so, being rich, I don't need to earn much
money. While its true that by chance I am rich, I was into free
software before that.

And in both cases, as MJ points out, this is basically "ad hominen" nonsense.

>> However, if they are in an industry that does not yet have man jobs
>> that can rely on free software, there is a huge opportunity waiting
>> for them if they quit that job and start a new company that does the
>> same work but leveraging free software. I work in graphic design as
>> well as computing, and I am doing this too.
>
> I know quite a few graphic designers (my father included) who have clearly
> outlined that it is an area where there are absolutely no production quality
> free software alternatives to the likes of Adobe and Quark.

Adobe is a company, not a program. Quark is a company with one
program, XPress, for which Scribus is a production quality
replacement. I hope you'll suggest it to him.

> GIMP is nice and all, but until it supports CMYK, suggesting it could be used 
> by
> the design industry for professional work is laughable. :(

GIMP is due to support CMYK within 2 years thanks to GEGL's BABL system.

Krita already supports CMYK.

> Also, not everyone has:
>
>  *) the skills to start a software business
>  *) the money to start a software business
>  *) time/interest to start a software business

Skills are learned, time and interest is a matter of personal habit,
and very small amounts of money are required for starting free
software businesses. Cygnus started with $0 million, and grew revenues
of $100 million IIRC. I'll be sure to cover how to do this in detail
at my talk at this group in September.

>> The only way to get rich is to own a business, and the best way to own a
>> business in the software industry is to own a free software business.
>
> Define "best"... ;)

Ownership is about control; the best way to own a business is to
minimise the control of the business by outsiders. Proprietary
software means control by outsiders.

>> That's again an exaggeration; its clear that you like GNU but don't
>> agree with its philosophy.
>
> Absolutes, again. Maybe he half agrees? :p

I fail to see how you can half agree that proprietary software is unethical :-)

-- 
Regards,
Dave

I support www.gnuherds.org -
democratic free software jobs