[DotGNU]Re: DotGNU Manifesto - first draft

[Richard Stallman]

    Isn't this request in principle very similar to an "open source"
    leader requesting that "for the sake of those who don't agree
    that software modification and redistribution rights are a
    matter of ethics" one should "leave out the ethics talk",

At that level of generality, the two are similar.  For people with
those views, leading an open source organization, that is a rational
thing to do.  There are ways they can legitimately do that.

There are also illegitimate ways, which implicitly take credit for our
work or imply we support them.  It is their use of these illegitimate
ways that I criticize.

Neither Jefferson nor anyone who influenced him had an opinion about
free software issues, and readers will know this.  We are not
misrepresenting anyone, or claiming support from anyone who did not
support us, if we avoid presenting statements that presume there is a
god.

      However, having said that I don't think that the reference to
    God is incorrect in this text since it is in the context of a quote from
    Curran himself.  

      However, in the context of a quote I don't
    see how it can be invalid, 

This is not an issue of correctness or validity, it is a matter
of saying what we don't stand for.

That quotation states a view that many of us disagree with.  By
including it in our document in that way, we would endorse what it
says--*especially* its background assumptions.

That quotation is only indirectly relevant to the argument of the
essay, and simply because of its length it gets in the way: the long
digression makes the document less readable.  Deleting it would be an
improvement even if it did not say "god".

If you want to avoid giving Jefferson credit for Curran's idea, "was
popularized by Thomas Jefferson, and seems to originate from John
Philpot Curran" would suffice.  Then move on immediately to the next
point.