Immoral Choice
by cyberorg,
Friday, August 10th, 2007 @ 7:34 pm
When guys like Richard Stallman are fighting to maintain the freedom of software developers and users, compiz-fusion project goes and picks a paid, closed source and proprietary software for it’s community forum
I had made my views quite clear when the discussions were going on and I am still not convinced that this is the thing to do. It seems there is no free alternative the guys who do all the hard work of maintaining the forums could use, so here it is. But then again, I also think that we could have found someone from such a large community who would be more than willing to take on the challenge of keeping the free forum running smoothly.
A bit dramatic, but I’ll quote this I just read on Jeremy Allison’s blog post Tablets from the Mountain.
“Freedom isn’t free
No, there’s a hefty in’ fee.
And if you don’t throw in your buck ‘o five
Who will?”
: eet, August 10, 2007 @ 10:13 pm
This is just zealotry. Make sure that the chair you’re sitting on wasn’t made by exploiting foreign workers and that the food you eat isn’t part of the holocaust mankind as brought upon creation.
And no, I’m not joking; these are actually valid resentments, unlike you kindergarten-worries about some forum-software which certainly isn’t the work of the devil but only happens to be commercial and closed-source. Like, the bios of most computers. Duh.
: John, August 10, 2007 @ 11:27 pm
I am not sure what the point is. Are you saying that it is immoral to use closed software when there are no open software options available ? That seems to be equlivalent to saying, “We won’t have a community forum since there is no free way to do it despite the fact that there are non-free ways to do it.” Seems pretty harsh to me. Just my opinion…….
: jigish.gohil, August 11, 2007 @ 6:58 am
The point is, out of all the open source forum softwares available, I am sure we could have found something appropriate. This is not mission-critical software anyway that we couldn’t have lived with limitations of free software.
: devon, August 12, 2007 @ 6:27 pm
My problem with your position is that you are asking to use free software that you may have limitations because it is free vs using something that meets your needs. How you figure that is anything but zealoty is crazy, why use something that does not meet your full potential when you don’t have to.
: bob, August 13, 2007 @ 10:41 pm
Almost sound like a Debian user… ……… …
I would have chosen vB over PHPBB any day, I like my webserver in the state of being not raped. Freedom of choice extends to the individual too, one day when you look back on your life and see the time you wasted on this, you might cry.