ethical ubuntu

[Alexander Jacob Tsykin]

On Friday 16 June 2006 03:26, Guido Heumann wrote:
> There are (at least) two aspects which one might consider "unethical"
> about proprietary software licenses.
> The first one is often explained in speeches by Richard Stallman, and is
> about social/community interaction. If it is natural and good for people
> to share nice things with their friends, then it is not natural and good
> to accept a license clause which basically says: Never share this
> software with anybody, even with your friends! If you accept such a
> proprietary license, you will face the "moral dilemma" as soon as a good
> friend of yours asks you for a copy of the software: either tell him
> "no", or infringe the license.
>
by this logic is wrong to sell anything instead of giving it away. All secrets 
or things not disclosed to absolutely everybody are wrong by definition. When 
there is actually somebody who lives like that let me know.
> The second aspect is more pragmatic. In my experience, most
> (Windows-)users really don't care about "pirating softare", i.e. sharing
> proprietary software with their friends. Problems is, this (normal,
> illegal behaviour) is getting more and more dangerous as the RIAA and
> other Intellectual Property groups are pushing the lawmakers worldwide
> to impose real sanctions on such "pirates". With free software we have
> the chance to raise awareness of the "normal" day-to-day "pirating" that
> many people are doing, and give them a LEGAl alternative.
>
Until that software is as easy to use as their pirated software, it's not 
practical enough. The risks in pirating software are very low

Sasha