[Pan-users] Re: OT: GNU/Linux Was: clearing headers?

[Duncan]

Chris Metzler <address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Sat, 11
Oct 2008 00:33:38 -0400:

> On Sat, 11 Oct 2008 03:30:03 +0000 (UTC) Duncan wrote:
>>
>> > You criticize RMS for "requiring, either ethically or legally, that
>> > they use a particular name", but you concede that there is no legal
>> > requirement, so you must mean an ethical requirement.  But you've
>> > just said above "there's not an ethical requirement".
>> 
>> I'm saying it isn't an ethical requirement, but he's making out as if
>> it were.
> 
> And what is he saying will be the penalty you face if you don't fulfill
> that requirement?

The same one you face any time you do anything that's legal but not fully 
ethical, the condemnation of the (more) ethical people around you.  In a 
generally ethical "prestige of giving" culture like FLOSS tends to be 
(well, within reason, and when the prestige isn't demanded, which rather 
defeats the idea), that actually means more than money, and more than a 
legal penalty (relatively, of course) if the action in question is 
considered ethical but inconveniently illegal. (An example of the latter 
in cultural context would be violation of a software patent.)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman