Politics (was Re: [PD-dev] Re: [PD-announce] Pd-0.38.4-extended-RC7)

[Ed Kelly]

Can I suggest that, although it's fine to have
political discussions about PD development, could we
change this thread's name so that it doesn't look like
bug reports for hans' release? I'm sure we all have an
opinion, but we're probably wasting someone else's
time.

Personally I have an interest in my software not being
used by the military. But on the other hand, if the US
(or any other) military really wanted to use our
software, do you really think they would tell us about
it? If Microsoft don't have to release the code for
Windows, how on earth is somebody going to
reverse-engineer proprietary binaries to prove it was
used in a tank, even if they had them? All we can do
is make it open, and then every soul on the planet
with a net link can use it for peaceful purposes.

Also, and this is crucial, it is very unlikely that
somebody who's raison d'etre is to make art will be
involved in military research, and so the military
have probably never even heard of PD. Nor is it likely
that the military would take such an interest in
software that is designed for artistic purposes -
there are far more efficient ways to fly a plane! If
one of us makes a mathematical breakthrough in any
way, it may be used for military uses or not, but
never forget that the Unix operating system, and by
evolution BSD, OSX and Linux _all_ originate from the
US military. Let us use them for peaceful purposes.

But there's clearly a lot of passionate feelings here,
and if there weren't I'd begin to wonder if I was
talking to a community of artists or not! Bring it
on...

Best,
Ed


--- cdr <ix at replic.net> wrote:

> On Mon Jan 23, 2006 at 04:39:40PM -0600, Dave S
> wrote:
> > Hello,
> > THIS WHOLE TOPIC IS DESPOTIC, WASTEFUL, AND
> COUNTERPRODUCTIVE.
> 
> thank you for your depostic, wasteful,
> counterproductive response :)
> 
> > Take this argument elsewhere.  This is a waste of
> bandwidth
> 
> you know how many of these messages it would take to
> use as much bw as the avg 'silly flash movie' link?
> praobly aobut 150-300 or so but i havent counted..
> 
> > belong on ANY list-serv.  This is not the garbage
> the I subscribed to.
> 
> actually it is.. youre welcome to hit delete or
> unsubscribe. politics seem to be quite involved with
> many facets of pure-data, from the differing core
> branches, the differing build systems, the differing
> licenses, etc... or maybe not so much politics as
> smart people with their own views and experiences -
> its important to hear everyones opinion...which is
> one productive use of this list..
> 
> > 
> > Regards.
>   cheers .
> 
> _______________________________________________
> PD-dev mailing list
> PD-dev at iem.at
> http://lists.puredata.info/listinfo/pd-dev
> 


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