Re: [fsf-community-team] Freedom to become slaves?

[Florian Purucker]

Dear all,

Charlie:
>> Freedom is just that, allowing people to become enslaved if they so
>> choose, after they have heard about the alternatives, or not. listen if
>> they so choose or not. Freedom with conditions isn't freedom. :-) Yet
>> anyone can have that and call it freedom.

Simon Bridge: 
> The philosophy of freedom and what it means logically gets quite
> esoteric. I am trying to stay within conversational language and
> common-ground usage within the context of software freedom. Try not to
> mistake something which makes sense semantically to work in practice. In
> practice, we have seen, allowing slavery decreases the overall liberty
> of society.

I would like to extend both your ideas. Generally, people have the freedom
to give up their freedom and enslave themselves. Under this condition,
there will always have to be one person that is not enslaved, but enslaves
the others (you simply need an enslaver).

Technically, you cannot completely give up your freedom though, because
you will still have a free will. If you wanted to give that up, you would
have to commit suicide (and I do not know what happens then, meaning that
you could be free in a possible afterlife).

That said, you can give up some freedoms and this is also the part that is
relevant to Free Software. You have the right to decide to give up the
four
freedoms. It is very easy; you can do that even with Free Software by
restricting yourself and there is nothing immoral about it. The limit of
this freedom is the same as for any freedom though: The freedom of
everyone
else. So if you restrict someone else's freedom more than it is necessary
to ensure everyone's freedom, you are unjust.

In respect to software, this creates a dilemma: If you use (and typically
pay for) non-free software, you support the company behind it, you support
proprietary formats and the company will place more commercials with your
money (which will help enslave more people) and by using proprietary
formats, you force others to use the same proprietary formats with
proprietary software. This is clearly a restriction that goes beyond
guaranteeing everyone's freedom (sometimes this is not as clear cut).

Ok, that was quite long. Sorry about that.

Florian

P.S.: I hope this message will come through; my last couple ones haven't
so far.