[Fwd: Re: [Fwd: [ox-en] philosophical values]]
- From: Stefan Meretz <stefan.meretz hbv.org>
- Date: Wed, 09 May 2001 10:54:05 +0200
fyi.
-------- Original Message --------
Betreff: Re: [Fwd: [ox-en] philosophical values]
Datum: Tue, 8 May 2001 09:43:12 [PHONE NUMBER REMOVED]
Von: Xavier Drudis Ferran <xdrudis tinet.org>
An: Stefan Meretz <stefan.meretz hbv.org>
Referenzen: <3AF32F11.CC5ECB03 hbv.org>
El Sat, May 05, 2001 at 12:37:05AM [PHONE NUMBER REMOVED], Stefan Meretz deia:
Hi Xavier, all,
all?. You mean the oekenen list, I guess. I'm not on that list, so I
reply to you only, feel free to forward what you please where you
please.
I am new to the list and I am very interested in the phenomenon of
free software movements, I am not a programmer but a organizational
psychologist with interest in philosophy. I completely agree with your
observation that "lack of philosophical values is widespread in bussiness"
(and the rest of society imo), but I also believe that there is a lot of
folklore posing as "serious analysis" on philosophical matters of that
kind.
I am just a programmer without any contribution made to free
software,
just a happy user of free software. And I'm no philosopher (I only
took
one course and a half in high school, and I didn't like one of the
teachers, a jesuist), so any comment I can make is absolutely
amateur.
I don't pretend it to be any serious analysis. In fact that is why
I was making jokes of myself telling I should found a sect or a
political
party if I strayed so off from my field. On another hand you cannot
live without thinking some everyday philosophy, albeit without a
good
background. I've read almost no philosophy.
a simple question to begin with: "in what sense could we say that
developing and distributing free software is, or ought to be, based
on certain philosophical values and what are these philosophical
values then ?"
The value is freedom. I find that a good that can be legally shared
and
reused and adapted by anyone, is better than
one that cannot be shared or that is artificially
restricted.
The idea of propietary software is "your software is yours, so if
you
impose conditions in people who use it you will get more money than
if you don't". So the only value is money.
The idea of open source is "if you let people see the source code
they may help you fix your bugs or customize it to its needs, you
save
money that would have spent in maintenance and may keep control of
your
product as others improve it". So again the value is money, maybe
together with quality (which is seen as a competitive advantage or
something, so easily translatable to money).
The idea of open source is "the most useful way to distribute
software
is by ensuring that its use and evolution is free". The value is
usefulness,
a sense that no one should be repeating what others have already
done.
And there is a that software wants to be free, that is that the
natural
state of software, as that of information (because software is
information)
is free.
That is what I meant by philosophical values, a "metaphysical"
notion
of what software is like, and a value of usefulness to the world, of
progress and of efficiency as of problems solved in the world
instead
of as money coming faster to an author. I think money can never be a
value, because it is so abstract that it is almost meaningless, it
is
"only" a mean, and
values are things to look for, motivations, and therefore should be
full of meaning and evidently desirable.
I'm sorry I've been so late to answer, and I'm sorry I still don't
have
time to think enough and explain clearly what I mean. If you have
the
patience, I may try to do it better another day. I'm terribly late
now.
viva vista,
Jan
"If any point of view is as good as any other, then why isn't the point
of view that relativism is false as good as any other?" [Hillary Putnam]
_______________________
http://www.oekonux.org/
--
Xavier Drudis Ferran
xdrudis tinet.org
_______________________
http://www.oekonux.org/