Re: redisplay system of emacs

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

>      > Exactly.  This aspect of things is what the term "ecosystem" does not
>      > recognize, and that's why it is better not to use that term here.
>
>     I really am amused by this turn of discussion, because advocates of
>     copyleft are in precisely the same position.  Their *amoral*,
>     objective analysis of human behavior
>
> This is a paradox -- an appearance of contradiction that comes from
> a misunderstanding.
>
> The argument for copyleft comes from taking a moral stance towards the
> situation in which many people do not follow our moral ideals.  It is
> a fact that many people in our field take an amoral stance towards
> this issue, and it is important to recognize the facts, but that is
> not the same as taking an amoral stance ourselves.
>
> By contrast, if we call our software an "ecosystem", then we take
> an amoral stance.  That's what we shouldn't do.

The whole point is that most people can't be bothered.  You can call
that good or bad, but their use and distribution of free software is not
governed by a moral stance.  And not that of the software authors
either.  And you'll find that most contributors can't be bothered about
licensing, either.  They'll sign papers and are glad that's it.

Whether or not you take a moral stance does not imply that everybody
else in the system does.  There is enough free software that nobody
bothers anymore about morals.  People contribute to free software
because it hardly makes a difference and is what others do.  There is
lots of free software by now, and little morals.

In a similar way, the stock market trades lots of money, but most money
is traded on money rather than on goods.  Lots of money, little payout.

An emergent system.  An ecosystem with rules of its own, rules that its
originators did not plan in that manner.

> Thus, the difference between _our stance_ and our recognition of
> _others' stances_ dispels the paradox.

"our stance" is lost in the noise.  But it still gets the world
somewhere, because the noise has no direction and will get things
backwards just as often as forwards.

-- 
David Kastrup