Re: [school-discuss] Some questions about OSS in education:

["tim mattie" <timothymattie@lycos.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: jeff williams <cfiaime@cfiaime.com>
Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2004 12:48:27 -0500
To: schoolforge-discuss@schoolforge.net
Subject: Re: [school-discuss] Some questions about OSS in education:

> On Sunday 15 August 2004 11:45 am, Daniel Taylor wrote:
> > Daniel Ajoy wrote:
> > > BTW, Why doesn't Stallman like the the word "pirate" applied
> > > to software?
> >
> > because it is stupid to equate helping people with attacking a ship,
> > attacking a ship is bad, helping people (by giving software for
> > free) is good. Hence the dislike of the term.
> 
> Greetings,
> 
> First off, OSS is, in my opinion, the way to go for a number of reasons.  In 
> this Stallman is correct, although he dislikes the name "Open Source."
> 
> But, if I create a piece of software, investing my time and money and 
> equipment so to make it work, and if I decide to sell the binary and keep the 
> source as a secret, it is my creation to do with as I so desire.  I have no 
> moral obligation to take something which I created and give it away.
> 
> If I choose to give the source to the community, with certain restrictions 
> such as with the GNU Public License, that is also acceptable.  I can 
> determine what to do with that which I create.
> 
> For me to use something that I have no permission to use is stealing or 
> piracy.  Even if I don't agree with the terms of usage but need the program, 
> I can not take it on my terms.  I don't have that right.  If I have 
> permission to use the program with certain restrictions -- such as under the 
> GPL -- then I have the moral obligation to follow that license agreement.
> 
> For moral reasons, especially the planned obsolescence of proprietary 
> software, I do not choose to use it.  Morally I believe the GPL and other 
> open source licenses are more defensible, thus I choose to use open source 
> software.
> 
> I personally refuse to use Microsoft products.  But where a shop or individual 
> uses Microsoft products, I believe we must encourage them to act in 
> accordance with both the spirit and the letter of the End User License 
> Agreement.  Indeed, we need to be so anal retentive about it, showing the 
> absurdity of the EULA, that people will reject the products covered by the 
> EULA.
> 
> I am a school board member.  I am insisting that we can prove that every piece 
> of software is covered by a proper license.  This means, because we have not 
> used site licensing, that for each copy of Windows 95/98 which we run, we 
> must have a proper certificate of authenticity and the proper EULA.  If we 
> can't do that, those computer systems can not be powered on.  (Oh, let's just 
> load Linux and open source software and be done with the problem.)
> 
> 
I'm reminded of the terms ubiquitous and pervasive, also homogenous and heterogenous.  If it's the 
air or fresh water I think that is a public matter. Piracy was significant in a sense of continuity
in my mind in that probably only pirates stood to no natural claims on drift (on tradgedy), if you 
catch mine. Anyway I am also reminded of Jefferson's 'don't even denounce my separateness, and in times
of war you will be my enemy, and times of peace my friend ' if the "crisis" is that imperative, and 
formed his framework for a true independence.  Sorry if you don't care for rhettoric.
                                      timmattieim@icqmail.com
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