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Hello everybody,
I did not want to high-jack some of the previous related threads: - - Comment on "Nine Attitude Problems in Free and Open Source Software" - - firefox, iceweasel, burningdog, icecat, ...
Last day I was doing some philosophical discussions with the Socratic method [1], and found my self in situation where I was lost in my own arguments/thoughts ...
I had made a few standpoints:
free schoolbooks (gratis) vs open schoolbooks (free, gpl, cc) open standards vs de facto standards [2] apple vs gnu/linux gplv3 vs public domain vs software patents
Every standpoint seem to go down to the moral values of individual persons.
For example, why is it better that wealth (money) is spread out more evenly other then large corporations with lots of employees earn money and pays taxes, money does not disappear it stays in the world its an cycle...
What is wrong with paying lots of money for anti virus software, nice looking computers, buying all my software from one company. If it works for my and makes me feel save and secure and don't have bad experiences with it.
Is it egocentric to not support persons earning lots of money with there ideas, boughs patents, knowledge or other things.
Why should I share if I can take...
So how can one answer to those kind of thoughts, how to make persons see why they think like that, and that there are other ways to do things.
Thanks in advance for any thoughts.
Best regards,
Jelle de Jong
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_facto_standard
On Sun, Nov 02, 2008 at 02:45:17PM +0100, Jelle de Jong wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Every standpoint seem to go down to the moral values of individual persons.
Yes.
For example, why is it better that wealth (money) is spread out more evenly other then large corporations with lots of employees earn money and pays taxes, money does not disappear it stays in the world its an cycle...
It's important to spread wealth (even if indirectly through taxes used to save people with stuff like unemployment support, health support, etc...) since it is the biggest cop in the world by preventing civil unrest.
Lowering taxes has to be the result of optimizing state resources, and not as a result of cutting state support.
Both lead to less money wasted, but one has positive long term effects, while the other has positive short term effects (with long term problems like reduced state support, likely even resulting in civil unrest at the limit).
What is wrong with paying lots of money for anti virus software, nice looking computers, buying all my software from one company. If it works for my and makes me feel save and secure and don't have bad experiences with it.
Nothing "wrong" with that, as long as those guys who make anti-virus software don't promote things that hurts our freedoms (like promoting software patents, DRM, etc...)
They can try to exploit customers as much as they can before going bankrupt for following a morally wrong business model.
Is it egocentric to not support persons earning lots of money with there ideas, boughs patents, knowledge or other things.
No problem with earning lots of money with what you *DO* with your knowledge. But there's a huge morally bankrupt concept that you should prevent others from competing with you by using patents as a mine-field.
Why should I share if I can take...
Following that model implies you're likely a pirate. You pilleage, rob, extort and kill. Hopefully you don't really mean that :)
So how can one answer to those kind of thoughts, how to make persons see why they think like that, and that there are other ways to do things.
Morally wrong concepts will seem right if you're educated by a villain.
Although the frontier is fuzzy, there are things that are clearly on one side of the frontier rather than the other.
Rui