From owner-freebsd-chat Mon May 22 20:37: 4 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from lariat.org (lariat.org [12.23.109.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 01E1737B53C for ; Mon, 22 May 2000 20:37:02 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from brett@lariat.org) Received: from mustang.lariat.org (IDENT:ppp0.lariat.org@lariat.org [12.23.109.2]) by lariat.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id VAA18116; Mon, 22 May 2000 21:36:19 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <4.3.1.2.20000522213325.0446bc00@localhost> X-Sender: brett@localhost X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.1 Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 21:36:05 -0600 To: Rahul Siddharthan , Gregory Sutter From: Brett Glass Subject: Re: The Ethics of Free Software Cc: Arun Sharma , chat@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <20000523085510.A5994@physics.iisc.ernet.in> References: <20000522170335.B94994@azazel.zer0.org> <20000521131809.A6546@sharmas.dhs.org> <20000522170335.B94994@azazel.zer0.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org At 09:25 PM 5/22/2000, Rahul Siddharthan wrote: >The original article glosses over what I think is the real point >behind free software, and the rebuttal also does not tackle this point >as firmly as it could: that is, software is a tool, not just a work of >art, and therefore you should have the freedom to tinker with it just >as you can tinker with your music system or your car. Bob Young's >comparison of closed-source software with "a car whose hood is welded >shut" is excellent. No, it's not. Creative works are very different from physical objects. And looking under the hood of a car doesn't give you the ability to create unlimited numbers of identical cars, thereby depriving the automobile manufacturer of any future reward from his work. --Brett Glass To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message