about warez.at

[Josef Dalcolmo]

Florian.Weimer at RUS.Uni-Stuttgart.DE said:
> I still have to meet someone who is actually *forced* to use
> proprietary software.  People make decisions and claim that, as a
> consequence, they are forced to use proprietary software.  Maybe it's
> time to question the decisions. 

Well, I am not forced to do any particular job either, but if my employer 
demands from me to use a particular piece of software, then it might come down 
to the choice between the job and the principle. So I thought my wording of 
"forced", "need" etc. is not entirely unjustified.

You are right of course, that it does come down to the choices we make. I 
tried to argue for making it easier for people to make the choice of using 
free software, because as Kant already realized, few of us are actually 
willing to accept the discomfort of acting in an enlightened way.

So, if you intend to say that people should get enlightened, that is noble, 
but in terms of numbers you have lost your cause, at least for the time being. 
I try to be a bit more pragmatic.

Even though many tools have been ported to proprietary operating systems, I 
see from the response on this mailing list that the sentiment of the majority 
in the free software community is against the idea of Linux on Windows. I hope 
that this is really working in that community's favour, but I don't believe 
that yet - the reason being exactly this: most people do not care about 
enlightenment.

- Josef