[Pan-users] Re: OT: freedomware vs... Was: Building Panon Windows?

[Duncan]

Travis posted on Sun, 07 Mar 2010 16:29:58 -0800 as excerpted:

> I listen to all those that post here Duncan included even though it
> sometimes reminds me of
> what I might hear at a rightwing "Fundamentalist" revival.

FWIW, something that sometimes gets lost on both Christian (I honestly 
don't know if it applies in Islam, etc, or not) and Linux/FLOSS 
fundamentalists, but which I'm acutely aware of, due to my background, is 
that it *MUST* be a personal choice.

For Christians (at least most Christians, and here's why I'm not sure it 
applies to Islam, etc), it's called "salvation by faith".  If it's the 
law, it's not faith.  I know.  I grew up in a rather fundamentalist 
denomination, and while my folks were more or less OK, they sent me to 
church boarding high school, where spiritual choices were basically 
forced.  That rather seriously screwed up my life in ways that it took 
/years/ to recover from.  While now I accept that I'd be a rather 
different person than I am now had things been otherwise, and have thus 
come to accept what happened and have learned to live with it as a part of 
what makes me, /me/, that doesn't change the fact that forcing such things 
was and is morally wrong, period, and that I've have probably been far 
better off (and would have likely turned out far closer to my parents 
wishes, spiritually), had I gone to public school where I had to exercise 
my "spiritual choice muscles" every day, instead of having it forced on me.

Similarly with Linux, but in a positive direction.  It took me two years 
of preparation after the evidence was that I'd end up on Linux, before I 
finally was ready to make the jump (and then, as I've said, it was due to 
a push from MS).  It happened in its own time.  Had someone from the Linux 
side been able to or tried to force me before that, it'd have had only 
negative results, rather like the push MS gave me ultimately had negative 
results for them and the forced choices that church school made for me had 
negative results for both me and them.

Indeed, one of my Linux "mentors" told me later that he despaired of my 
ever making the leap and decided that I'd be on MS the rest of my life.  
But fortunately, he didn't try to force the issue (possibly because there 
wasn't much he could do /to/ force it, as it was only thru a newsgroup 
that I knew him, but regardless...), only continued to patiently attempt 
to persuade... continuing to make the arguments after he was convinced it 
was a lost cause.

It was precisely because of that, because after having presented their 
case, I was allowed to make the decision right for me when it /was/ right 
for me, that I ended up the extremely strong supporter of freedomware and 
the freedom it means, today.

So while I'm both a strong Christian with personally "fundamentalist" 
beliefs and a strong Linux/FLOSS zealot, with similarly strong beliefs, 
I'm JUST as equally strong a supporter of individual freedom and the right 
to choose. Indeed, /because/ of those extremely strong belief including an 
appreciation for what I see as the results of one's choice, and /because/ 
of my experience, I *MUST* be a strong supporter of personal freedom, 
because the stakes are simply too high to attempt to short-circuit things!

So rest assured, Travis (and anyone else reading), that I respect your 
choice and the vital importance of you having that choice both now and 
continuing to have it in the future, to an extent far far greater than I 
could ever believe that you've made what, from my personal perspective, 
might look like the wrong one!

Just because I have beliefs strong enough that I believe I should be 
willing to support those beliefs to death, doesn't mean I'm interested in 
forcing those beliefs on others.  Quite the contrary, in fact.  I happen 
to know folks that wish a fire (or earthquake, or...) would destroy the 
local mosque and it distresses me greatly.  Similarly, I know folks that 
would likely as not be joining the pro-life forces demonstrating at an 
abortion clinic.  But should I be aware of said demonstration, I'd very 
likely be on the other side, marching for pro-choice, even if I personally 
believe abortion is wrong.  Indeed, I've contemplated volunteering as a 
guard at Planned Parenthood, a chapter of which we have locally, tho I 
haven't in part because I've /not/ seen a particular need for it.  
Similarly, I could easily see myself at a city council hearing, opposing a 
move to shut down the local strip club, even if it'd be against my 
personal beliefs to attend such an establishment.

For similar reasons, I really do hope MS stays around for awhile, to I'd 
certainly be happy to see them with a 5-10 percent share instead of the 90-
plus they enjoyed at one point.  And, I sincerely hope for an ultimate 
browser plurality, maximum perhaps 40% share for a single browser, even 
were that browser to be say firefox, and similarly for the OS market -- I 
really do /not/ wish for Linux majority share, tho plurality would be 
nice, and I'd take majority Linux, or majority FreeBSD, or /anything/ 
freedomware, over majority MS or Apple, any day.

[Meta observation: My! Look where this topic has gone! But oh, well, it's 
not as if we have a pressing new release of pan and a bunch of unanswered 
questions about it to deal with...  And pan being GPL2, it could be argued 
that it's not /entirely/ OT.]

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman