Mandriva to ship Skype [LWN.net]

Mandriva to ship Skype

Posted Dec 22, 2005 7:03 UTC (Thu) by Duncan (guest, #6647)
In reply to: Mandriva to ship Skype by fergal
Parent article: Mandriva to ship Skype

You have a point, but the fact that it's morals preventing my access makes
it just as literally inaccessible to me as if it had been something else,
just as MS products are now forever inaccessible. Like a defector leaving
behind the country he was born and grew up in for good -- at least until a
change in government, tho he may leave friends and loved ones behind, I
just as surely left MS and slaveryware behind -- likewise leaving a bunch
of loved ones behind when I did. The old Duncan that could tolerate or
agree to such servitude no longer exists. Just as that defector, I'm a
new man with a new life, who really couldn't go back, at least legally and
therefore without putting myself in danger. Therefore, anything located
in the place I left behind is just as surely inaccessible to me as it is
to that defector. Sure, he /could/ go back, and so could I, but he'd
likely be in danger for his life if he did, and so would the new Duncan.

Duncan

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Mandriva to ship Skype

Posted Dec 24, 2005 1:27 UTC (Sat) by fergal (subscriber, #602) [Link]

(apologies if this is a bit scattered but it's late and almost xmas, not really feeling like polishing the ideas).

You can only expect so much from Skype in their effort to make it accessible. Some people don't have a computer, can they complain that Skype is not accessible to them? It's far less accessible to them than to you

Also, your situation and a defector's are very different. A fundamental difference is that the defector, once caught cannot escape again whereas you can check your email on windows in an internet cafe while on holiday and then go home and return to Free software exclusivity. Also the seriousness of the consequences are different by orders of magnitude. It's inconvenience versus fundamental rights/torture/death.

I think that a world of Free software would probably be a better world but there are plenty who would disagree. A world where closed software was illegal could also be a better world but it is one where the right to earn money and the right to be stupid in a particular way has been forcibly removed. There are many such rights that we currently have, like the right to smoke and the right to soak up money and resources from society for decades and then go and risk it all inventing some new extreme sport. The world might be a better place if we lost some some of these rights but that does not necessarily mean that they are immoral or that they definitely should be illegal. If it was easy (or even possible) to decide these things, there would be no debate about socialism versus capitalism for example (and for the benefit of the terminally misinterpretive, I didn't just compare Free software to socialism).

I'm not convinced that it really is a moral issue. I'd say it's more of an economic issue because it's largely about convenience and productivity. The issues which come closest to being moral could be addressed by mandatory documentation of interfaces and persistent storage formats (source code being an acceptable form of documentation), a right to have bugs fixed and a guaranteed right to reverse engineer. With these in place no one's documents or hardware need ever become unusable. People can pay to have software developed for their needs (as is frequently suggested with regards to Free software) except they would not be guaranteed access to a previous working version which they could use as a base. Free software achieves almost the same thing but it adds access to a previous version while taking away the right to keep source code secret (which the foundation of the closed software business model).

The argument that this business model is immoral because it impoverishes one group while enriching another can be applied to nearly any business model. In fact that's almost the definition of a business model.

And just to be clear, I'm not promoting Skype and I'm not attacking Free software. None of the jobs I've had would exist without Free software and
there's a small chance that you have used (probably without knowing it) Free software that I have written.