press release critique

Marc Eberhard m.a.eberhard at aston.ac.uk
Thu May 3 09:53:52 UTC 2001


Hi Jos!

On Thu, May 03, 2001 at 10:31:08AM +0200, josX wrote:
> > yes, we all would like to see a better world, where we can do what we want
> > and where we don't have to pay for the beer at the pub around the corner.
> > But that's not how the world works, at least not at the moment.

> So let's start changing that, it is not going to come from the government,
> and it is not going to come from the corporations.... but it can come from
> free(dom) software (at least in part), so let's do that!!

Well, I personally think this is getting off topic, but anyway...

You might have wondered, why I mentioned Karl Marx. The reason is, that he
proposed more or less exactly the same as you do. You might enjoy reading
his ideas. And in principle it sounds quite tempting, but every country in
the world, that has tried to implement something of that kind, has failed
quite miserably. So, that's not the way to go. Sorry.

I'm sure everyone on this mailing list appreciates your enthusiasm and if
you can afford to write code, distribute and support it completely free of
charge, there will be no word against it. Instead it will be more than
welcome. But please understand, that some people are in a situation, in
which they can not afford to act as you do. This doesn't mean, they're evil.
They still try very hard to support free software as good as possible. And
they typically do invest a lot of resources in producing free software. So
in the end, the benefit for the community is much bigger than their personal
(financial) advantage. Why should we leave those people out in the rain?
Why? They agree to the same principles and they do contribute as much as
they can. I think, this is already far more than you could possibly ask them
for.

> We won't win if we say "this is how the world workes", although that is
> true, it cannot be an argument for how the world is going to be if we want
> change, and I want change and I see you want it too :-))).

Most of us want to see changes, but I definitely don't want a revolution. We
want to change things step by step. Not all at the same time. I think,
that's the difference between us. Anyway, I'm _no_ "official or other kind
of member" of the FSFE, so someone from the core team should better comment
on this. :-)

> (btw, saw on discovery an interesting story about how `capitalism' grew
>  in England due to canals and small enterprise on them.)

Funnily these canals have now been rediscovered in Birmingham and are
redeveloped for leisure and recreation. How times have changed...

Bye,
Marc
_______________________________________________________________________________

email: marc at greenie.net
email: m.a.eberhard at aston.ac.uk, web: http://www.aston.ac.uk/~eberhama/



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