[gentoo-amd64] Re: How To Play WMV (thread drift - slaveryware)

[Duncan]

"Bob Young" <BYoung@××××××××××.com> posted
FAEEIJPAOFEMBBLKPMJEGEIDHKAA.BYoung@××××××××××.com, excerpted below, on 
Thu, 28 Sep 2006 19:55:31 -0700:

> Now we're getting off in to other discussions, companies purchase the CSS
> IP of other companies all the time, such developement "polination" is
> certaintly not dependent on OSS. This particular discussion however, was
> about "slaveryware" vs "freedomware" from the viewpoint of the end user,
> not corporations. To the vast majority of end users, OSS, while a nice
> "feel good" thing, doesn't actually make them any more free in any real
> practical way.

Well, when a fair segment of end users /are/ corporations, and they are
the ones funding the development and responsible for the fact that it's
not just a hobby for many any more... I'd say excluding them from the
picture is itself unrealistic.  In fact, there are many disturbed by that
trend, and I see their point, but find the trend an inevitable result of
the mass popularization of what was once the few-hour-a-week-at-best hobby
of a handful of very geeky developers.

Another analogy can be made to voting.  Even the majority of folks
choosing to sit out a vote, many who may never have registered to vote at
all and don't really intend to, would have serious problems with a
suggestion that this right/freedom they have been choosing not to exercise
be taken away.  Just because you don't exercise it doesn't mean it's not a
freedom.

There's another aspect as well.  Thomas Jefferson is quoted as saying "The
tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of
patriots and tyrants."  (I recognize the name may not mean much to an
international audience, but those who wish to can of course look it up,
now that it's cited.)  While one hopes this particular liberty won't come
to that literally, there was a time a few years ago when I thought those
who refused to surrender such freedoms of the mind might end up imprisoned
-- and it could still happen, particularly in the areas of the arts as
opposed to computer sciences, where we have a head start.  After a bit of
self-examination, I realized I couldn't honestly say I was committed to
death, tho I believe in the freedom strongly enough that I /believe/ one
/should/ be that committed.  However, the reality is that some have
already been imprisoned over it -- even reaching across other nations'
laws to do it (xref Dmitry Sklyarov).  I realized that those believing
must certainly be prepared for that possibility, and that I felt it a
tradeoff worth the cost.

OTOH, it's foolish to needlessly tempt the legal fates, thus my insistence
that I literally /cannot/ at this point legally run most unfree software,
due to the EULAs, and therefore that I /will/ not do so.  For someone
considering the possibility of that level of sacrifice, telling that
friend mentioned earlier that I cannot legally view his clip in the format
it's currently in, merely foregoing that tiny bit of convenience while
creating a slightly awkward situation, is a foregone conclusion.  (I may
also observe that likely fortunately for me, I don't have the technical
skills to do the sort of reverse engineering that would be most likely to
get one in the most serious legal straits, so realistically, the chances
of it ever going beyond a trifling bit of inconvenience and perhaps a
takedown order for being part of a whack-a-mole game similar to the DeCSS
thing aren't as high as they'd be for a good coder and reverse engineer
with similar beliefs.)

Yes, that /does/ make me a radical to many, I realize that.  However,
that's the degree to which I hold the beliefs of slaveryware vs
freedomware, and why it's /going/ to come up from time to time in my
posts, as it's a rather large part of my world-view.  The only other
alternative would be to stop posting to whatever public forum (in the
generic/broad sense, so mailing list included) entirely.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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