Re: [Fsuk-manchester] the non-free neighbour asking for help dilemma

[Iain Roberts]

----- "Dave Crossland" <address@hidden> wrote:
> 2008/5/6 Iain Roberts <address@hidden>:
> >
> > As a liberal, I believe that it's not morally wrong for people to
> act in
> > such as way as to harm themselves.  If he chooses to constrain
> > what he can do with software, it's not my business to tell him not
> > to, just as it's not my business to tell him to give up smoking or
> > drinking for his own good.  (And that assumes that he *does* harm
> > himself in some way by choosing proprietary software, which I
> > very much doubt).
> 
> You ought to tell people who harm themselves to stop doing so, but
> forcing them to do so cannot be justified.

So how is he harming himself?  Or, to put it another way, in what ways will his 
life be improved by switching to free software?
 
> When people send you data in formats only understood by proprietary
> software, they pressure you to use proprietary software and it is
> inconvenient for them to convert the data to a free format, and for
> you to wait while they do this, or find some other way to get the job
> done.
> 
> If he sent them an OOXML file, and then the someone comes asking for
> a word processor that can read that file, what will his answer be?

Now you're talking about open standards which is entirely different to free 
software (you can, and do, have free software that writes files in an 
undocumented format nothing else understands and you can, and do, have 
proprietary software than writes in open standards).

> 
> Choosing proprietary software is morally bad. Please read
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html that explains in full :-)

Have read it more than once - just don't agree with it ;-)  It makes a 
reasonable case for society in general being improved by having more free 
software, but a very weak case for why an individual should choose free 
software over proprietary, unless they actively want to make use of the four 
freedoms.

Iain

-- 
Iain Roberts
Axiom Tech
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