On Oct 5, 2006, at 4:06 PM, Theo de Raadt wrote:
Please
don't automatically suggest that people who try to do good, end up
doing good.
Oh, I would not at all suggest such a thing. I run for office, and know
that in public policy, intent is meaningless, it's only effect that
counts.
Let alone people who say they are going to do good, but
show that their moral compass is off-kilter even during the
development stage.
Maybe morals are more like social heuristics than compasses.
Compasses point
to an identifiable source, whereas morality is pretty relative. So
let's say it
might be possible for Mr. X to have a functional moral heuristic that
is not rigidly
conforming to Ms. Y's moral heuristic.
Being in politics, I've learned that "you are morally wrong" is one
of the
weakest arguments one can use to convince another human being to
alter their course of action. I confess I resort to that argument from
time to time, e.g., when the local pols (here in Colorado) are
oppressing
the Mexican guest workers, but it's a pretty useless argument for
getting any personal change out of the malefactor. It's just a dunking
chair, so to speak.
Yes, and of course there is huge money to be made out of the OLPC.
OLPC is the american challenger in the race to beat the Chinese to
this particular market. And it is about money, from all sides. The
children are just mentioned to make everone feel good.
Oh, I thought they were non-profit humanitarian foundation. Ah, well,
there's lots of money to be made even in non-profits. In any case,
the syllogism:
1. Free software is the Highest Moral Good.
2. OLPC won't promise to use only free software.
3. OLPC is evil.
was all I could deduce from the previous correspondence, and it sounded
puerile. Now you induce further information into the argument, i.e.,
that
this is for-profit and therefore their business conduct can be judged
on the same
basis as any other technical organization. In that case, I'd tend to
agree with you.
I just didn't get that from the original posting. Maybe I should make it
a practice of re-reading entire threads before I put my oar in :-)
--
Jack J. Woehr
Director of Development
Absolute Performance, Inc.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
303-443-7000 ext. 527
