[ppc-mobo] Re: GNU License for Hardware

[Richard Stallman]

      I think your analogy is precise and accurate.  It also
    demonstrates an irreparable flaw in your position about individual
    freedom.

It isn't a flaw, it just shows that we're evaluating freedom in two
different ways and not understanding each other.  I was hoping the
analogy would help you see it, but it didn't, because you're
evaluating it the same way in regard to dictatorships as in regard to
proprietary software.  It is very consistent of you to use the same
evaluation always, but I'm at a loss to explain what the other way is.

    That is an important freedom: the freedom to choose to take risks.  In 
    economics it's known by a rather different name:  "entreprenuerism".

I think this is quite a stretch; taking a risk of losing some money is
very different from living in a dictatorship.  There are some
similarities--they both involve a risk of some kind--but differences
as well.  The problems of living in a dictatorship are not solely a
matter of risk, they are not only a matter of money, and they do not
apply only to you.  Perhaps in your political philosophy these
differences are of no import, but that is not so in all political
philosophies.

Comparing Japan to a dictatorship is also a stretch.

(I do not share the unqualified adoration of entreprenuerism that is
part of the established ideology, but I think that would be an
unnecessary tangent.)

    I'm sorry, if you want to argue that using proprietary software makes
    me less free, you are going to have to argue in dynamic terms, 

Using proprietary software makes you less free because it means you
are living under domination.  Whether you are encouraging or
discouraging the development of more free software or more proprietary
software is also important, but it's something else.

You may not care about this, but I do.