Xref: utzoo comp.misc:6703 alt.flame:8400 Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!novavax!twwells!bill From: bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells) Newsgroups: comp.misc,alt.flame Subject: Re: The GNU Public License Message-ID: <1989Aug2.044845.4211@twwells.com> Date: 2 Aug 89 04:48:45 GMT References: <26@ark1.nswc.navy.mil> <26719@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <5351@ficc.uu.net> <9655@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <1989Jul30.210646.12194@twwells.com> <1811@hudson.acc.virginia.edu> Followup-To: alt.flame Organization: None, Ft. Lauderdale, FL Lines: 81 In article <1811@hudson.acc.virginia.edu> gl8f@Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) writes: : In article <1989Jul30.210646.12194@twwells.com> bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells) writes: : >Most of the anti-GNUs have learned that arguing with those who : >approve of the GNU philosophy is like arguing with medieval religious : >fanatics: there is no positive gain to be had, and one is likely to : >get torched as well! (There maybe ought to be a smiley there, but : >while the modern torching is metaphorical, it is just as real.) : : Why argue with them? They give away software; you can either use it : or not. You can agree with their opinions about intellectual property : or not. Best of all, you can ignore them completely. I live with : lots of people with whom I disagree, yet I live in peace. A failure to counter the evil ideas of this world is a surefire way to let those ideas screw us all over. Or maybe you just thing that social change occurs in a vacuum? : >The GNU philsophy is so brain-damaged that no person who actually : >*thinks* about it would hold it. (For clarification, I'm referring to : >the ideas relating to intellectual property rights, not to the idea : >of providing free software.) : : However, insulting the intelligence of those who don't agree with you : is a poor debating tactic. No wonder you have little luck convincing : anyone. Well, apologize to me. You ASSumed that I insult people as a tactic when debating with them. That I rarely do. When I insult someone, it is because I've *stopped* debating them. In the case of GNU fanatics, experience has taught me that the ideas that they hold are not held because they've thought about them; those ideas are religious convictions and not subject to reason. : >But to those who are confused about the issue, I will just point out : >that the FSF is a parasite on that which they despise. Consider the : >status of a parasite that would kill its host, the morality of a : >person who would destroy the society that makes his morality : >practicable, and the rationality of biting the hand that feeds you. : : Imminent Death of Commercial Software Predicted!! Just think of all those : companies writing C compilers and editors that will go out of business : because their products are inferior to GNU C and GNU Emacs? Sniff, sniff. Oh horseshit. Your debating tactic is called the "red herring". If the IDCSP were to occur it would happen because Stallman et al. got it legislated out of existence. It will certainly not happen because FSF products are superior to existing ones. Since that isn't true. : FSF will not kill the computer industry. No. But the law can. Perhaps you've forgotten the "trivial" effects of one relatively recent piece of "minor" legislation: the very high prices for RAM? That screwed over many segments of our economy; moreover, the effects of that bit of despicableness can still be seen corrupting the computer industry. : And why is this in comp.misc : anyway? Intellectual property rights sounds more like a topic for : misc.legal, imminent death of this or that for misc.headlines or : alt.conspiracy, and parasites for sci.medical. Where's your smiley? And your sense of history? This topic is regularly debated on comp.misc. And from the description of newsgroups: comp.misc General topics about computers not covered elsewhere. Certainly talking about FSF and its philosophy is computer related. If you had really wanted to suggest a good place to put this discussion, you could have suggested comp.society. : Sweeping insults : of the intelligence of this or that group is appropriate for : alt.flame, not cross-posts. So why did you post? After all, I *did* set followups to alt.flame. Just as I have done with this one. --- Bill { uunet | novavax | ankh | sunvice } !twwells!bill bill@twwells.com