Verily I say unto thee, that Roy Schestowitz spake thusly:
> Finding the happy medium in FOSS
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | Here are the four points, if you will, on which FOSS developers
> | are pulled in different directions:
> |
> | * Free as in freedom.
> | * Free as in beer.
> | * Legal and ethical.
> | * Usable and pragmatic.
> |
> | The differences are more philosophical than nuts-and-bolts.
> |
> | [...]
> |
> | Can we reconcile these four points? Similar to the saying, "Cheap,
> | fast, good -- pick any two," FOSS is in a constant struggle to
> | balance these issues.
> `----
>
> http://www.linux.com/feature/125321
I don't see any contradictions.
Free Software is funded by companies who benefit from it (and voluntary
donations from users). I do not, nor have I ever, had any objections to
paying for Free Software, provided that payment is not protection money
to those who actually wish to suppress Free Software with patents. Let
companies make money from Free Software, and good luck to them, as long
as that software /remains/ Free, and does not inhibit users' ability to
use and modify it - and distribute and redeploy those modified versions
for the purpose they were intended (or any other purpose).
If companies adhere to these principles, then I can not see how profit
can be in contradiction to ethics, nor how ethics would inhibit profit.
Indeed many companies can and do operate businesses based on principles
that do not violate ethics or the law. When did this expectation arise,
that business and ethics are *necessarily* in contradiction?
As for pragmatism, that is nothing but a /buzzword/ for capitulating to
the demands of those who behave unethically, because the pragmatist has
scummed to the exploiter's indoctrination of false dichotomies. That is
to say; usability need not come at the expense of Freedom.
--
K.
http://slated.org
.----
| "[Microsoft] are willing to lose money for years and years just to
| make sure that you don't make any money, either." - Bob Cringely.
| - http://blog.businessofsoftware.org/2007/07/cringely-the-un.html
`----
Fedora release 8 (Werewolf) on sky, running kernel 2.6.23.8-63.fc8
20:15:51 up 44 days, 17:51, 4 users, load average: 0.01, 0.06, 0.03
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