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benny1967's Avatar
Posts: 3,790 | Thanked: 5,718 times | Joined on Mar 2006 @ Vienna, Austria
#41
Originally Posted by pichlo View Post
In contrast, Stallman's idea is that you cannot use a brick for building just anything. You can only use it if all the other bricks are made from the same earth and you also publish a complete blueprint of the building including all the wiring, plumbing and furniture, all of which has nothing to do with the brick. That is not freedom, that is dictatorship.
I'm sorry to all the others. Pichlo, I know you long enough to realize you're trolling now just for the fun of it (and for some other reasons...) - But as I've studied law and see so many common misconceptions of the uneducated concentrated in this one paragraph, let me just correct a few. Maybe those who really fell into your trap can learn from it.

Stallman's ideas about free software are stict and he's not the one who makes compromises. Personally, I admire him for that. But not making compromises doesn't mean being a dictator unless you have the power to force people into doing something. Stallman doesn't have any such power, so calling him a dictator is cheap propaganda and an personal insult not only towards him, but also towards those who support his ideas. (Speaking about power: Stallman's only power is to convince people with his words. Given how - well, how to put it... "non-mainstream" his appearance is, it speaks for his ideas how many people he has convinced so far.)

About reducing one single person's rights for the greater good: That's what communities, societies do. That's what we call civilisation. We restrict your right to kill unpleasant neighbours. This reduces your freedom and can make for some unpleasant saturday evenings at home, but society agreed that in general it's the better way to go. We also restrict your right to drive your car the way you want, no matter where, no matter how fast. There are one-way-streets, speed limits, stop signs. Again, societies implement such regulations because they find that while they hold disadvantages for some individuals at certain times, in general there are more benefits. Restrictions imposed by free software licenses aren't even compulsory the way traffic regulations are. You can easily escape them by using different software. But there's a community (a society) that decided for itself (from experience): The advantages outweigh the disadvantages by far. In the particular case of software, you can leave this community rather than break the rules and try to cherry pick.

The brick example doesn't work the way you describe it. Juiceme has said pretty mauch anything there is to say: It's not about what you do with the bricks. It's what you do with possible changes you make to the way bricks are produced. It's all about ideas and information. The crucial part is that the chain must not be broken: There were 100 people before who shared their information and ideas for free so that you could use their common work for your benefit. They did so under the condition that, if you had a great idea to improve it, you'd share it back, and they trusted you in this. - Now you call those people "dictators" and want to keep the outcome for yourself, even though maybe your own input was minimal. How on earth can you even try to excuse such behaviour with a "fight for freedom against dictatorship"?