On Mon, 08 Sep 2003 22:17:07 +0200, Wouter Verhelst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
> Op ma 08-09-2003, om 18:42 schreef Manoj Srivastava:
>> > Since our users and the DFSG are equally important, one should
>> > not try to solve one of those problems *at the cost* of the
>> > other, and *certainly* not if one is not willing to provide a
>> > solution.
>>
>> The DFSG is indeed in our users best interest -- unless you think
>> that shipping non-free in main helps the users who use those bits,
>> and thus users interest should render the DFSG irrelevant, since
>> the users can benefit. This is a deeply flawed argument.
> So is saying that not shipping with an RFC implementation is in our
> users' best interest, or saying that holding up the release is in
> our users' best interest.
Is it? Propreitary software can indeed provide value, and is
often useful to people -- which is why the company is in
business. And yet, we have coalesced a volunteer effort around the
premise that libre software is better.
If you think that this premise is flawed, then I wonder how
you passed the philosophy section of the NM process.
> Either way results in an action in conflict with the social
> contract. The question is: what's the least of the two evils?
Or, who gets to decide what is the users best interest?
> That's a judgement call we have to make, and it may well be
> different if you make it, as compared to if I make it. Especially
> since it's not clearly defined anywhere what's actually 'in the best
> interest of our users'.
As a consumer of food, my predilection as a child was
overwhelmingly in favour of fast food -- tasty, convenient, and yet,
according to my health care professional, inordinately bad for me.
Non free software, despite its allure, is, in my opinion, bad
for the users.
>>
>> And you think our users are best served by non-free software?
> Our users are best served by useful, working software.
Even when it is not free?
manoj
--
Software entities are more complex for their size than perhaps any
other human construct because no two parts are alike. If they are, we
make the two similar parts into a subroutine -- open or closed. In
this respect, software systems differ profoundly from computers,
buildings, or automobiles, where repeated elements abound. Fred
Brooks, Jr.
Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
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