Rich Morgan wrote:
> On Tue, November 14, 2006 2:20 pm, Jonathon Conte wrote:
>
>>> From: michael hast <evylrobot19@cox.net>
>>> Reply-To: slug@nks.net
>>> To: slug@nks.net
>>> Subject: Re: [SLUG] Cheap'n good laptops for Linux
>>> Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2006 06:03:32 +0000
>>>
>>> Okay. I've been at this for a little while now. Maybe I'm being
>>> thick-headed, but what part of that might be immoral? The fact that they
>>> want to retain ownership of their code? Should all software producing
>>> companies be forced to share their code? Wouldn't that attitude support
>>> M$'s argument about Open Source supporting communism?
>>>
>> Preface: My apologies to the list for hijacking the previous thread.
>>
>> Disclaimer: It is not necessarily my opinion that proprietary software is
>> immoral nor is it my intent to persuade any on the list to reach a
>> particular conclusion. However, I'll try to touch on a few reasons that
>> some
>> consider proprietary software to be immoral.
>>
>
>
> I think you fall into a trap when you assign moral qualities to objects
> rather than activities. It might be more accurate then to say that
> *writing* proprietary software is immoral since you could be hurting other
> people with buggy code that they cannot fix or placing people in an
> unsecure computing environment they cannot make secure.
>
> To answer Mr. Hast's question: "Should all software producing companies be
> forced to share their code?" I don't think anybody should be forced to
> share their code, but companies do have an ethical or legal obligation to
> not knowingly produce a product that is harmful and to quickly respond if
> they have released a bad product. What other industry in the world can
> produce products that are knowingly or accidentally defective and not be
> held accountable?
>
> Just my 2 cents...
>
> v/r,
> Rich Morgan
> OpenAddict.com
>
>
>
That's my thought, Mr. Morgan, but to answer your last question there,
you could look at the artificial sweetener industry... ...but that's
another discussion all together... ...possibly best suited to another
forum or the politics list... ...on with your regular programming...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked
Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages
posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Fri Aug 01 2014 - 19:30:16 EDT