On Oct 5, 2006, at 6:05 PM, Ingo Schwarze wrote:
But they were wrong. To guard your Self against corruption, legal means are ineffective. Which means, then, might be effective? That is one of the most difficult questions i heard of. I cannot yet come any closer than this: Don't let people put you into social or political contexts that could pressure you to change your goals and your personality in any way you resent. Above all, do not trust your own morality or strength or whatever to remain true when tempted. Hardly anybody can resist any serious temptation for long.
A person who cannot trust their own morality is also guaranteed to be unable to hold fast to any morals to which they may verbally ascribe. No system or external means of governance can assure the absolute protection of any particular philosophical stance; they are fundamentally at the mercy of the people's power over it. As such, it is only with absolute standards of "morality" and the personal adherence to those standards of enough people that one can have any hoe of retaining any ideal. OpenBSD has done a good job of self-government, and as such, I believe it holds truer than most groups to the ideals it espouses.
OpenBSD is as in danger as any other group of "corrupting" itself, however, if the people who work with it are unwilling to pay the price of their beliefs.
Red Hat and many other companies were never philosophically bound to protect and develop Free software; they are interesting in utilizing some of the advantages of Open-Source software to make a business. They are running a business whose intention is not the preservation of programming freedom. OpenBSD does have that goal.
So in the end, we can't expect anything to happen if a people don't really care. People can't put in external protections to assure the safety of their ideas, it is the responsibility of people to ensure that such things are protected, and right now, there aren't many people concerned with that relative to the opposition or the complacents.
-- Aaron Hsu ~ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
