David, wonderful writeup! there is a guy here at work, he is full of extra(sometimes called crap or standup), nobody takes him seriously. He is always talking(trying to discuss) religion/philosophy/societies/real-estate/what-not! etc... which people quietly skip. BUT once in a while, he says something which sucks otherwise sane and hardworking people into his nonsense... and then we see: trying-to-talk-sense vs nonsense. Its hilarious, and complete waste of time. We have moved him to midnight shift: to help midniters stay awake.
mud: more you try to wash it, more muddy it becomes... Love you all. -BG ________________________________ ~~Kalyan-mastu~~ ----- Original Message ---- From: David Walker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: misc@openbsd.org Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 6:40:28 PM Subject: Re: Real men don't attack straw men Richard. Belief systems are vital for living. Every conscious act is the result of a belief. Thoughts are the waters from which belief systems are distilled. None of us know everything. We know very little. In our desire to provide for ourselves a framework to live by, many ideas we have are distilled into beliefs - without full possession of all the pertinent evidence. This is pragmatic. How we get things done. We can classify beliefs as critical or trivial. The only important step is that we scan for evidence that disallows. Vigilantly. Why? There are two types of belief system. Sanity. Valid belief systems. No evidence available that disallows the belief. Psychosis. Invalid belief systems. Evidence exists which disallows the belief. As a result of our imperfect knowledge our belief systems are initially weak. When we come across new evidence relating to one of our beliefs we recognize the need to re-evaluate. That engenders the possibility of relegating the belief to the scrap heap. We imagine life without it and see chaos instead of opportunity. That can be scary. The scare can lead to resistance. For many of our beliefs, no matter our resistance, life steps in and shows us the error of our ways. Awareness of this process, sometimes through much pain, leads to acceptance. Why? As we grow we realize the bigger danger is that we allow untenable beliefs to to remain. Somehow, the effort required to be vigilant is not as hard to muster as the effort to swim against the current. Furthermore, when we re-evaluate beliefs and find they are still tenable they become more useful. We turn straw houses into stone. We become a bit wiser. As we move through life we generally learn about ourselves and the way we resist re-evaluating our beliefs. One common method is to "play the man and not the ball". This is an attempt at sidestepping and sending standard input to /dev/null with exit 0. We do this by calling the emotion subroutine. Although this is insightful programming - we recognize the conditions that cause an error in our software - we do not deal with them skillfully but rather program them out. The real sadness is not the harm we do to others but rather the opportunity we deny ourselves to pull down our straw houses and build stone ones. One method used to resist re-evaluation is mislabelling. This is another emotion subroutine. If one method is daring and another careful most men might see possibility of success in either. However applying labels such as "reckless" and "foolhardy" turns brave into dangerous. Likewise if cautious becomes "stereotypical" and "mainstream" who would achieve anything by choosing it? Computer software is an industry. It is not life or death. It is not killing babies. It is not tipping cows over. The licenses are (electronic) pieces of paper. Nothing about the licensing is bad. Nothing about the licensing is wrong. Nothing about the licensing is immoral. Nothing about the licensing is unethical. Absolutely nothing about the licensing has to do with your conscience. You may not like them. They may differ from yours. They are only labellable with the terms you choose in two ways. They are an affront to humanity. I expect to see media coverage and/or rebellion. They are an affront to other business. I expect to see other software manufacturers causing a stink. Instead there is one group swimming against the current. I would expect in either of these two cases the government to step in. After all, the government regulates industry for the people. If the licenses are bad and wrong, etcetera that is under the government's purview. Trade practices acts, etcetera. None of the labels fit. Richard Stallman wrote in this thread: "non-free software to be unethical and antisocial". "with a clear conscience to someone". "I might say the act was bad, or I might say it was good, depending on the details not specified." On non-free software. "then those users have done something bad". On installing non-free software. "endorses it and takes on the ethical responsibility for it." On making it easier to install non-free software. Richard Stallman said on BSD Talk: "there's no point in discussing how to use non-free software because you shouldn't". "in many parts of the world the governments uses servers that run windows and you can only talk to them if you're using windows. So these governments have essentially been corrupted into pushing the citizens to use non-free (unintelligble) software" -7:15 "well actually I don't try to do that very much, I don't bring this issue up from the viewpoint of why you, developing a program would find it advantageous to respect other peoples freedom; because the point is it's your moral duty. You've got no right to trample other peoples freedom, non-free software is a social problem - it's wrong." -10:05 "well if it's a non-free license then you shouldn't use that code at all. Period - because it's not ethical." -20:15 "the unethical nature of a non-free program is something more important. It's an ethical question." -20:30 "Well, yes, There are, there are unethical distributions of gnu slash linux. There are lots, in fact most of 'em do include non-free software which means that if you're installing one of those you might get a system that isn't entirely freedom respecting" -21:00 "this is the ethical standard I believe in and I follow" on not recommending any "non-free" software. "there's no point in discussing how to use non-free software because you shouldn't". What is the effect? When you misappropriate labels you run your emotion subroutine. People who do not understand the technical questions of licensing may be swayed by your labels. Especially people who know who you are. Ray Percival wrote: "So a high profile public figure talking out of his ass and representing things he's not informed about as facts as opposed to asking questions to get informed is better ... how? That's what we would expect from a political activist not an engineer." I quite agree. Ray is talking about your misinformation about OpenBSD. It also applies to the manner in which you describe those that are different to you. As much as it may seem like you are playing the man and not the ball I don't believe you are. I believe you are running your mislabelling emotion subroutine to avoid the consideration that you need to pull down your straw house. Richard, it seems to me the recurrent themes of your 'philosophy' are untenable. However, what bothers me the most about it is your misappropriation of terms. For example your "definition" of freedom. It is much more damaging than influencing opinion and resisting re-examination. It is disrespectful to use terms like freedom and bad and wrong in the manner you do. These terms belong in four wheel drive and deodorant commercials as reflections of the aspirations and failures of humanity. Other than that in the humdrum of triumph and pain of people who are oppressed and downtrodden. What will you cry if a wolf ever comes? David And you post again. "Is there anyone here who actually proposes to prevent users from running non-free software? Not I. I think that software is unethical, and I refuse to install it, or suggest it to anyone. But I have not proposed that systems actually block its installation." If I for one moment believed that any code I write should not be used with some other software and considered it bad, wrong, unethical, immoral, etcetera I would take what steps were available technically to prevent that from occurring. The steps I took would be directly related to the severity of the potential problem. Two methods for you. 1. Do what licensers do. Regulate the possibility. Want to drive an automobile? Here is your license. Obey the road rules. No drink driving, no speeding, etcetera. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. It comes with driving. Want to use this "free" software? Here is your license. Availability of source and all that. No non-free software. 2. Do what manufacturers do. Design against the possibility. Of course someone will hack you. "Happy hacking". BTW, on the issue of government and Windows. There are two different issues. A. Transfer of information. Not a "free" software issue. If a government uses Windows and you cannot access documents that is government disregarding it's procedure (at least where I live). The corruption is the disregard of their own policy regarding access to information. It has nothing to do with the software they use. The salient discussion is open document standards. B. Transparency of procedure. Not a "free" software issue. If a government uses Windows and you cannot determine what happens to the information (is some "lost", "siphoned", "munged", etcetera) that is also government disregarding it's procedure (at least where I live). The corruption is the disregard of their own policy regarding transparency of procedure. It has nothing to do with the software they use. If this does not make sense to you, consider other government functions such as security. Would you expect an audit of the operation of the intelligence network of a nation to be made public? The salient discussion is independent auditing of software. Everything else is a furphy.
