childers@avsd.UUCP (Richard Childers) (06/10/89)
lewie@ecn-ee.UUCP writes: >If the purpose of the GNU project is as a political weapon, then its software >ceases to be what it claims to be - free. How does that follow ? Please explain. As I understand it, GNU is driven by a collective assumption that, while competition is a powerful force driving events in the computing market, from the point of view of those concerned more with functionality than with profiteering ( IE, getting more out of something than you put in via the mechanism of supply and demand ), competition and proprietary idealism interfere with a truely free flow of ideas. Much of this idealism springs directly from the same stream that brought us the Freedom Of Information Act. That is, we - the people - are actually hurting ourselves more than we are helping ourselves, when we allow forces that apply only to the market to influence our government, our relationships with one another, and ultimately the look and feel of our society. Secrecy is found where there are people whom stand to gain ... which implies that there are others whom stand to lose. Such a separation is alien to the concept of democracy, as I understand the phenomena. We are alleged to be One People, and everything that follows thereafter springs from that basic sense of identity. Some people believe our society - the whole race, if the truth be known - stand to gain much more than they lose, were certain organizational tools made readily available at every level of our society. What we're discussing here is the shift from a materialistic society to an informative and informed society, through the medium of public databases, public software, and public access to publically owned hardware, facilitating public participation in those affairs that effect the wellbeing of us all. A planetary USENET, if you will. The Global Village. To translate such a radical approach to influencing market forces away from their traditional alignments for the benefit of the species, into an effort to engage in political subversion, is to confuse finance with freedom. You can have freedom without finance. I'm not sure you can have finance without freedom, though. Those people with the foresight to address these issues while there is still time left to, deserve more than to be labelled mere radicals. >Jeff Lewis (lewie@ee.ecn.purdue.edu) >Purdue University Robot Vision Lab -- richard -- * "We must hang together, gentlemen ... else, we shall most assuredly * * hang separately." Benjamin Franklin, 1776 * * * * ..{amdahl|decwrl|octopus|pyramid|ucbvax}!avsd.UUCP!childers@tycho *