On Jan 7, 2008 12:14 PM, Richard Stallman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > IMO, a big part of the problem here is that when you say "recommend" in > this context what you actually mean appears (based on the discussion > here) to be something that most people would express as "not > deliberately erect barriers against". > > The evidence of this discussion shows that's not a good description > for what I am saying. Many of the people on this list were told that > I want OpenBSD to "erect barriers against" installing non-free > programs. And their words show that they think this means designing > the system so that installing non-free programs is impossible. (I > have not suggested such a thing.) > > My usage of the "recommend" fits in normal usage. If you include > program FOO in a list of programs that could be installed, implicitly > that recommends installing FOO as an option for people to consider. >
Providing a list of programs that can be installed constitutes an implicit recommendation for each one of them? That means if I said you can choose to run OS A or OS B on your computer (and let's assume for now that those are the ONLY OSes that will run on the hardware), I am therefore recommending both as equally valid options. In other words, unless I specifically say "I recommend NOT running OS B", then I am implicitly recommending both. If "free" means the freedom to choose to do what you want, then you have the right to know what all of your options are. There is a reason courts often say "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth". One can answer the truth about something, but only mention part of the truth and/or add in non-true information. Just because it was partially true, doesn't mean it is completely true. In the same way, not providing one all of the options available to them means they are not completely free to make their own decision. Now, if said list provides a list of programs that will run, but then says "but only program X is fully supported", THAT would constitute an implicit recommendation. Alternatively, if one or more programs on that list is listed as "not recommended", then all of the other ones without that annotation are being implicitly recommended. But perhaps I have some twisted logic going on here and I'm way off the mark. In that case, I'd like to know where I went wrong in my thinking.
