> Closed source only serves one purpose, profit. That's fine, but if I'm > not personally profiting, then why would I argue for that side? You could > say that because of profit, people are able to develop software which they > might not develop by any other means, again, true, but again, not my > problem. >
Okay, but I think you missed the specific point of the argument, which was *pick your battles*. Your response here is a general argument about why free software is better than proprietary software, which I agree with. I was not (and ESR was not) making any kind of argument in favour of proprietary software. Rather, the argument is that we should not place all proprietary software on equal footing, because it is not. There is far more at stake when an operating system is proprietary than when a microwave or a browser game is proprietary. If given the choice between a free software thing and a proprietary thing of the same type, I'll choose the free software thing. But I like the idea of this "scale", so that I can make different choices in these scenarios: 1. I am offered proprietary encryption technology to send an important document, and no free software alternative is available. I choose not to send the document at all (or, if at all necessary, to build my own free software alternative), because it is very important that I can trust the encryption technology. 2. I am offered a proprietary microwave to heat my food, and no free software alternative is available. I choose to use the microwave, because why would I even want the source code to my microwave anyway? You might argue that I'm "disempowering" myself by choosing an unhackable microwave, but at this level of triviality on the scale, I honestly don't care. The point of the article is to view a spectrum in between these two scenarios, and to stop caring about those at the low end, so that we can focus our efforts on the high end (and not come off as unrealistic preachers who will eat cold meals because they are unable to customise their appliances). _______________________________________________ Free-software-melb mailing list [email protected] http://lists.softwarefreedom.com.au/mailman/listinfo/free-software-melb
