[oclug] News stories you won't see...

[Francis J. A. Pinteric]

On Sat, 8 May 2004 14:58:07 +0100
"Mark Harrison" <Mark at ascentium.co.uk> wrote:

> You are seriously claiming that buying closed-source software from a
> company opposed to Linux is the moral equivalent of dumping raw sewage
> into the watercourse?
> 

Do you think there should be a distinction? I'm not a moral relativist.

The point is that once upon a time we WERE pumping sewage into our
rivers and nobody thought twice about it. Today if a company or even an
individual did the same thing, he would be hauled before the courts and
pilloried in the media.

Microsoft is a criminal organization bent on taking away your freedoms
through monopolistic practices that they have already been found guilty
of in many courts in several countries. They have no intention of
stopping them, considering the costs, fines and punitive damages as
merely the "cost of business."

Isn't your freedom of choice just as important as clean air and water? I
personally do not make distinctions between evils. What good is clean
air and water if you don't have any freedoms? If you can't see that then
I hope you enjoy it when you, your children or your grandchildren
are ruled by corporate executives in some far off land.

This issue is a much larger one that it appears you are capable of
seeing.

> For the hard of thinking, the purpose of my "spoof" was that this
> "Microsoft is the enemy" talk is NOT the kind of moral argument that
> sways decision-makers.
> 

Then find one that works. Obviously you're not the one to do it.
Fortunately there are others out there doing exactly that. I'm giving
you the moral imperative, it's up to you to implement it.

>>>--fja->




-- 
"Mars is red because that way we could tell which one
is which." -- 8 year old girl.

Besides myself, there is no intelligent life in the universe.
If humanity is the scale by which intelligence is measured,
humanity is proof that there is no intelligence anywhere.