[discuss] Reuters: Novell could be banned from selling Linux: group

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On February 12, 2007, Andrew Kohlsmith wrote:
> Don't mince words; "without ethics" means exactly that: unethical.

actually, it doesn't. it may have been RMS' intention to cause such confusion 
when/if he said that (i'm not him, so i really don't know), but in the case 
of open source the phrase "without ethics" refers to how it espouses the dry 
pragmatic benefits of free sotware. it is not equivalent to saying that 
it "denounces the ethics" or violates the same. 

if you speak with bruce perens, for instance, who came up with the term with 
eric you will find that the ethics are still tantamount just not part of the 
presentation slides when it's "open source".

being able to speak both ways is important as neither approach is universally 
useful or universally "right". we need both: an approach that dissects the 
ethics and social consequences of same and an approach that highlights the 
pragmatic benefits such as risk management.

personally, i switch between the two approaches depending on the audience i'm 
addressing. both/and, not either/or.

my concern is that when people become polarized because of personalities 
within the community (i find individuals on both "sides" to be insufferable 
at times =) we will lose important tools at our disposal, not to mention 
waste our energy on useless conversation and aggravation.

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

Full time KDE developer sponsored by Trolltech (http://www.trolltech.com)
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