dld@F.GP.CS.CMU.EDU (David Detlefs) (07/26/89)
I was rereading the GNU Manifesto, and a point struck me that hadn't before. In the "Why I Must Write GNU Section," RMS says "I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it." Much of the rest of the Manifesto attempts to argue (often successfully, I think) that following his application of the golden rule will make the world a better place. The point that struck me is that from the FSF point of view, this later argument is actually irrelevant: if the advocation of free software makes people lives materially better, that is fortunate, but not crucial; what is more important is that "[FSF people] can continue to use computers without dishonor." [Manifesto, p. 2, slightly paraphrased] Please note that I am *not* trying to be derisive in drawing this distinction. I am merely trying to get a better understanding of the political and philosphical goals of the FSF. In the study of moral philosophy, the first intellectual split is between "rule-based" and "results-based" philosophies. "Rule-based" moral systems attempt to set up a system of rules that should specify the morally correct action in any situation. The golden rule is one such system; Kantian ethics is another. "Results-based" moral systems say that the moral action in a situation is the one that should produce the best outcome for the all involved parties. John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism was the first important example of such a "situational" ethics (I think). Now, if the bedrock of the FSF philosophy is the golden rule as applied by RMS to software, then it certainly seems to me that their actions are internally consistent. "Software hoarding" is correctly seen as a violation of the chief moral rule of conduct. If, however, I am mistaken, and the intent is that FSF people find the outcome of the application of their philosophy important in judging the correctness of that philosphy, then the correctness of their actions become more open to discussion -- if only because it is more difficult to predict the outcome of events in the real world than it is to check the internal consistency of a closed logical system. Personally, I find a "results-based" philosophy more appealing than "rule-based" philosphosies; it seems to me that morality is too complicated an issue to be captured in a finite set of discrete rules. Blithely mathematicizing, Utilitarianism introduces continuous variables into moral philosphy, which I think makes it correspond better to the real world. But why am I talking about this here. I propose to discuss in later posts whether or not the results of the GNU philosophy are likely to result in a better world, since such a discussion will influence whether or not I wish to contribute any work to the effort. Thanks for your time. Dave -- Dave Detlefs Any correlation between my employer's opinion Carnegie-Mellon CS and my own is statistical rather than causal, dld@cs.cmu.edu except in those cases where I have helped to form my employer's opinion. (Null disclaimer.)
roskos@IDA.ORG (Eric Roskos) (07/28/89)
You have made some good points. I truly wish it were possible to discuss these philosophical issues in an objective forum, but there is not one here. A basic principle Stallman sets forth is "if I like it, I want to share it." Interestingly, this is the same concept which is set forth in an intriguing, anonymous book of philosophy from the 70s. But that book goes on to observe that this is only true of ideas, that only ideas are increased by sharing (I think it uses some more generic term than "ideas"). Underlying the Gnu problem is a hard economic problem, that ideas are not sufficient for software to exist. And thus there are the requests for donations of the resources that are necessary for it to exist; at this point, the whole idea collapses philosophically, since those resources are not ideas, but tangible things. I wish I had time to go into this in more detail, but I am out of time. -- Eric Roskos (roskos@CS.IDA.ORG or Roskos@DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL) -- Eric Roskos (roskos@CS.IDA.ORG or Roskos@DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL)