[PD-dev] Re: [PD-announce] Pd-0.38.4-extended-RC7

[Martin Peach]

Mathieu Bouchard wrote:

>On Mon, 23 Jan 2006, Martin Peach wrote:
>  
>
>>Mathieu Bouchard wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>You see, it's normal to have systems sometimes. When there's an evil
>>>system somewhere, you shouldn't be worried about the fact that it's a
>>>system as much as the fact that it's evil, because, if you do, then the
>>>evil system has won, while all the potential good replacements lose.
>>>      
>>>
>>Hmmm, I think all human systems become more evil with time: the more the
>>system becomes established, the more humans work for _it_ and must adapt their
>>behaviour to _its_ needs, even when it began as a user-friendly sytem whose
>>purpose was to help the people who started it; so all sytems need to be
>>thoroughly broken and rebuilt every once in a while before they become too
>>despotic, wasteful, counterproductive. Of course systems in most need of
>>reform are at the same time the most dangerous to meddle with...
>>    
>>
>
>So, linking this back to what we were talking about, I ask you, is the
>Free Software Foundation despotic and/or wasteful and/or counterproductive 
>and/or in need of getting thoroughly broken and in need of being rebuilt?
>
>  
>
No doubt it will get that way eventually. It seems to take a few decades 
for the rot to really set in. At the moment it seems harmless enough, 
but it _is_ encouraging the same belief system that the antipiracy 
league subscribe to: that licences to software mean anything at all in a 
real world where a file may be copied at almost zero cost. A physical 
object may be copied as well but the cost is usually prohibitive. That's 
why pragmatic people buy a real Cadillac instead of a copy: the cost is 
lower for the orginal, not because it's infringing someone's 
intellectual property to copy it.

Martin