morality != religion and doing OSS != OSS company

Lloyd Budd lloyd-fEEwcc3XMu8jODpR/OX0VQ at public.gmane.org
Sun May 23 08:05:37 UTC 2004


On 22-May-04, at 23:36, Henry Spencer wrote:

> On Sat, 22 May 2004, Lloyd Budd wrote:
>>> Seen from a distance, the two can be hard to tell apart.  Nor is 
>>> there
>>> consensus on where one ends and the other begins.
>>
>> Your response seems to be misdirection .  I am starting to think
>> so was your previous response . I do not see why you think
>> "this is good" , nor what "religious fervor fading" has to do with
>> IBM not feelmorally driven to OSS .
>
> It's good that IBM has *practical* motives to be interested in open
> source, because if they had instead undergone a religious conversion to
> fervent support of open source regardless of practical motives, the 
> odds
> are good that they would eventually change their minds.

At least you consistent in your misdirection .  No one could suggest 
that
you have demonstarated that you equating morality with religion , but it
is does seem that you are not willing to separate them for clarity of
discussion .

It is ironic that the main reason that Open Source is profitable is 
because
of non-profit motivations of individuals .  Such a potent poison .

Was IBM  a leader in the areas where IBM has supported open source ?

The result is moral conformance , at the very least to allow people to
ensure that secure , high quality programs run on their computer
systems .


> The *only* way open source is ever going to make it in the business 
> world
> is if it looks more profitable than the alternative.  And if it does, 
> the
> business world will adopt it without feeling "morally driven".
>
> Corporations like IBM are not mysterious evil entities separate from 
> the
> rest of the world.  Their capital funding comes from stockholders, who
> entrust them with it in hopes that they can make it grow; corporations
> exist solely for that purpose.
Possibly the single most wrong thing with the free world .  Corporations
are legally required to do exactly what you describe , regardless of the
negative impact on humanities health .

> Their *highest* *moral* *obligation*,
> rising above all others (except, for practical reasons, compliance with
> applicable laws), is to make those investments grow in value.  That's 
> the
> duty they owe to their owners.
That is not true .  Possibly I am wasting my time responding to another
misdirection .  Corporations legal obligation to their stockholders 
largely
preclude them from being morally obligations to their stockholders , or
anyone else

> Expecting corporations to disregard
> profitability in the name of some other objective is asking them to 
> throw
> away the money of people who trusted them -- a thoroughly immoral act.
Disregard profitability ? Throw away the money !?

> Corporations' moral obligations to their stockholders largely preclude
> them from being "morally driven" by other considerations.

--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml





More information about the Legacy mailing list