[NTLUG:Discuss] RE: RMS's Speech

[Lance Simmons]

On Thu, Jan 18, 2001 at 10:47:17PM -0600, Christopher Browne wrote:
> 
>    It may be galling to RMS that he didn't get credit, and that people
>    did not agree on the term "GNU System."  
> 
>    That still doesn't establish that Torvalds has any responsibility
>    for robbing the FSF of credit.  

I agree. If I recall, rms said that the linux kernel pushed the project
over the finish line, or something like that. A good analogy here might
be an Olympic relay race victory: the image that sticks in your mind is
the runner of the last leg (the anchor, I think) crossing the finish
line. The anchor is always noticed more.
 
> Changing topics considerably, I found it a real cackle that RMS seemed
> to think that one of the most important pieces of free software was a
> "Windows emulator;" the preponderance of probabilities is that you've
> got three classes of software that might run under such emulation:

I thought the most compelling reason he offered was that such an
emulator would put an end to makers of proprietary Windows software
porting over to linux and polluting the waters. In terms of Catholic
moral theology (the moral tradition with which I'm most familiar), the
question would be whether what he proposes amounts to formal
cooperation with evil (which is never justified) or merely material
cooperation (which sometimes can be). The crucial questions would be

(1) whether the evil avoided (polluting the pure GNU/Linux waters) is
significantly greater than the evil permitted (people running non-free
software on a free windows emulator who are already running that
non-free software on a non-free OS), and

(2) whether there are legitimate uses for such an emulator sufficient
to make it at least prima facie reasonable to create the emulator in
the first place. 

There's no doubt that for rms the answer to (1) is yes, I think he also
made the case that the answer to (2) is yes, by pointing out that there
are many free windows programs that people would like to run on a free
emulator.

So I think his proposal would receive a thumbs up if he were to ask a
Catholic moral theologian for advice. Not that I'm under the illusion
that he's likely to do so.
-- 
  .~.
  /v\   Lance Simmons
 // \\  lance at lsimmons.net
/(   )\
__^_^________________________________________________________________________
An inventor is a person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers
and springs, and believes it civilization.
                 -- Ambrose Bierce