On Thu, 2003-06-05 at 03:54, Wouter Vanden Hove wrote:
Hi,
In Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, there is stated
(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author. http://reactor-core.org/universal-human-rights.html
How does this affect the FSF's viewpoint that writing proprietary software is immoral?
I'm not an FSF or FSFE member, but I would like to say a few words to this provocation.
1. I don't think FSF have ever stated that proprietary software is immoral. First of all, as software is an object not an action I hardly see how it can be itself immoral.
2. The way many proprietary software companies behave may be seen as immoral to some degree, as they put on you exaggerated limitations like forbidding you to help a friend, fix bugs in software you have paid for, be free to use the software for whatever are your needs.
You reported point 2 but if you look at point 1 of artcile 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights it say: "Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits"
Free Software among other things give you 2 things fundamental things needed to fulfill this right in the field of software.
1. Freedom to study the code 2. Freedom to modify the code and redistribute it
Point 1 fulfill the "Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community" part of point 1 of article 27. Point 2 is fulfill the "to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits" part of point 2 of article 27.
To both source code is a prerequisite and the freedom given by free software a necessity to respect point 1.
Proprietary software do not permit you neither to study nor to modify the software to grow in scientific advancement.
Just not to forgot article 2, Free Software is perfectly OK with it. Both Copyleft and non copyleft Free Software, strongly preserve moral rights, and let the author choose how to "protect" their material interest.
Hope this clarifies a bit what I think are key point benefits of Free Software.
Simo Sorce.