There is also the unstated assumption of a universal ethic. :) Is there? Shall we continue in alt.philosophy? ====================== Jordan Peacock hewhocutsdown at gmail.com hewhocutsdown.blogspot.com On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 11:00 AM, p.daniels <carl1086 at morris.umn.edu> wrote: > On Tuesday October 21 2008 04:04:41 pm benjamin gramlich wrote: > > > I think it's difficult to make the case that free software helps to > > > preserve our personal freedom. Free software really only benefits those > > > who have the knowledge to make use of the access to source code. > > This is demonstrably false. I don't code. At all. I haven't written an > original line of code since the fourth grade. But when I found a bug (or > rather, a "mis-feature") in my music player (gmusicbrowser, released under > gpl3) I wrote the developer an email saying "here's my problem," and in the > next version it was fixed. If it hadn't been, I could have asked someone > else who knows perl to help me fix it, or paid someone else who knows perl > to do it for me. In a nutshell, I didn't even look at the code, and I (in a > personal and immediate way) benefited from the free software development > process. > > > The true threat to my freedom is my dependence upon another's generosity > > > for my employment and thus my livelihood. Or illegal wire tapping. Or > > > gerrymandering. > > Let's flip those second two examples just slightly. "Wire-tapping" can be > trivially accomplished these days with the non-free software in your own > phone. The 21st century equivalent of gerrymandering seems to be non-free > software in voting machines. > > Would you say that those are threats to your freedom? > > -p. > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.mn-linux.org/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20081022/6265325e/attachment.htm