Hello everyone,
Franz Christopher:
It is in our nature to want to share something especially
when that certain something is good. For as long as I can remember
computer users have found ways to share software with other users
and big companies have tried (unsuccessfully) to hinder this
sharing of applications. Open/Free software just seems far more
natural.
I am sorry I am playing devil's advocate again, but this is called a
naturalistic fallacy. Just because something is (natural) doesn't mean it
ought to be that way. So this argument may work often, but don't try this
on anyone asking for a reason why something that seems natural ought to be
that way.
Please don't take my comments personally. I know things in writing can
look a lot more rude than they are meant to be.
Florian
The same 'fallacy' goes for theories of human nature. They are
contingent on history and language and not rooted in some foundational
truth. Often these kind of categories like naturalness or human nature
are used politically to promote conformity or other objectives. The
Nazis said they were doing something "good" (for Aryans), thus they
shared their ideas with everyone else (and not just shared, but imposed
[but hey, medicine is not supposed to taste good]). They said they
would be restoring a "natural" order of sorts which had been disturbed
etc. etc. bla bla. NB: I am not comparing anyone to Nazis here; its
just an clear (I think) example of relying on such 'fallacies'-they may
sound good but are so general and arbitrary that they can be employed
to support totally different agendas. In fact, social darwinism was
also supposed to have been "good" and "natural" until Adolf did his
thing to discredit it.