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Anonymous
Question For Free Software Ideologues 2017-02-16 10:57:24 Post No. 58978494
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Question For Free Software Ideologues 2017-02-16 10:57:24 Post No. 58978494
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I have a question for free software ideologues:
Supposing you want to do something that can only be done with proprietary software, is it ethical to do so?
I'll give an example.
Richard Stallman lists a number of services on his site that are against his free-as-in-freedom philosophy.
One of those sites is meetup.com.
According to Stallman, meetup.com is bad because it uses non-free Javascript code.
It is, however, well known that a lot of computing enthusiast groups host educational activities and other programming-related events on meetup. Occasionally, registration will be closed to non-meetup account holders.
Suppose somebody told you that there was going to be a GNU/Linux seminar hosted on meetup in your city. Also suppose that the topic of this seminar would be something that you could not learn about elsewhere, and that registration would be open only to meetup account holders.
Attending this meetup would allow you to make contributions to the world of free software. However, you would need to use non-free software in order to attend.
Would attending this event be worth registering a meetup.com account and subjecting your computing to rape by non-free Javascript code? Or would you prefer to avoid attending, even if it resulted in your knowledge of free software becoming outdated?
Or to distill the question to its essence: is it moral to use non-free software when it delivers an obvious benefit that no free software application can match?
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As opposed to the popular belief, most of us have jobs and come to /g/ to look at battlestation pictures and talk tech, Nothing more.
Most of us don't give a shit about that Stallman fat autistic retard and his hippie ideologies.
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didn't read but
>taking the free source libreware meme seriously
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As someone who likes Stallman's ethos but doesn't take any proactive measures to avoid non-free software: probably ethical, but it depends on the person.
For Stallman, totally unethical, as his ability to manage without non-free software is how he reaches people.
For you, a developer, maybe it's worth you sacrificing your freedom (in a sandboxed VM) is worth it to ensure others can live free productively.
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>>58978494
I think in this case even Stallman would go ahead and use meetup for this purpose
Source: on his "how I do my computing" page he talks about how he will use a computer with non-free software in a pinch if he has to, just won't make a habit of it
It's not like you'd be promoting non-free software by doing this
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>>58979113
>most of us have jobs
most of who?
Because most /g/ users are acutally between 12 and 15 years old
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Paraphrased quote from Stallman when asked this question:
>STOP TE TRYING TO COME UP WITH SITUATIONS WHEN USING PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE IS NEEDED. IT'S DISRESPECTFUL.
I'm not even lying
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