[oclug] Re: OCLUG digest, Vol 1 #2774 - 13 msgs

[Raymond Wood]

On Tue, Jul 22, 2003 at 02:55:14PM -0400, Albert Cardarelli imagined:
> I've jsut begun downloading Mandrake 9.1 from what appears to
> be a legitamate site in the United Kingdom.. total time is
> said to be 3 hours to download.....tried to download the same
> thing from a site in New Jersey and they said it would take 13
> hours... funny, eh?  I have owned two boxed copies of Mandrake
> in the past - versions 7.2 and 8.2, but I never got them
> working well, so I grudgingly dispensed with them.  Now I miss
> tuxtracer and a couple of other games...crocodile tears? No,
> just an inate sense of guilt that I am downloading an
> operating system I never paid for, yet paid for twice in the
> past, but didn't completely work.  While I'm not an encoder, I
> am a gratuitous end-user with a constant interest in alternate
> technology.... I feel I have contributed to this product's
> development, yet feel guilty for downloading the free
> version... should I feel guilty?  

Yes -- and plenty guilty too!

Okay, just kidding  ;)  If anything, you should feel guilty for
feeling guilty in the first place, but this would only turn into
the kind of recursive humour that *nix users seems to enjoy...

Free/libre software is, among many other things, a phenomenon of
mass sharing.  To download and use free software there is no
obligation other than we are required to share the software
freely with others also i.e. we are not supposed to hoard it for
ourselves.

In a culture like ours that associates value with money so
strongly, it may take time to get used to the idea that it is a
good thing to be able to accept these free software gifts from
others without paying for it -- but we are working on it  :)

The fact is that even by simply *using* free/libre software
instead of proprietary software, each of us is making a small
but important contribution.  Even if we made no contribution
whatsoever, we should feel completely comfortable availing
ourselves of the fruits of others' labour that they have freely
shared with all of us.  This is in keeping with the spirit of
free/libre software -- IMHO  :)

Have Fun,
Raymond
-- 
"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the
homeless, whether the mad destruction is brought under the name
of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?"
(Gandhi)
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