www/philosophy is-ever-good-use-nonfree-program...

[Richard M. Stallman]

CVSROOT:        /web/www
Module name:    www
Changes by:     Richard M. Stallman <rms>       15/09/01 20:16:05

Modified files:
        philosophy     : is-ever-good-use-nonfree-program.html 

Log message:
        Emphasize the peak moral issue of suggesting that someone else
        run the nonfree program.

CVSWeb URLs:
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/philosophy/is-ever-good-use-nonfree-program.html?cvsroot=www&r1=1.11&r2=1.12

Patches:
Index: is-ever-good-use-nonfree-program.html
===================================================================
RCS file: /web/www/www/philosophy/is-ever-good-use-nonfree-program.html,v
retrieving revision 1.11
retrieving revision 1.12
diff -u -b -r1.11 -r1.12
--- is-ever-good-use-nonfree-program.html       1 Jun 2015 17:55:13 -0000       
1.11
+++ is-ever-good-use-nonfree-program.html       1 Sep 2015 20:16:04 -0000       
1.12
@@ -38,8 +38,9 @@
 been proprietary, it would not have required replacing.</p>
 
 <p>The conclusion I reached was that using Unix to put an end to the use
-of Unix was legitimate. I likened it to participating in small ways
-in some other evil activity, such as a criminal gang or a dishonest
+of Unix was legitimate for me to suggest to other developers.
+I likened it to participating in small ways
+in some evil activity, such as a criminal gang or a dishonest
 political campaign, in order to expose it and shut it down. While
 participating in the activity is wrong in itself, shutting it down
 excuses minor peripheral participation, comparable to merely using
@@ -58,6 +59,7 @@
 <p>However, there are other nonfree programs we still need to replace,
 and the analogous question often arises. Should you run the nonfree
 driver for a peripheral to help you develop a free replacement driver?
+(More precisely, is it ethical for us to suggest that you do so?)
 Yes, by all means. Is it ok to run
 the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html";>nonfree
 JavaScript</a> on a web site in order to file complaint asking the
@@ -78,14 +80,15 @@
 the cause.</p>
 
 <p>Even using a nonfree program to develop free software in general is
-better to avoid. For instance, we should not ask people to run
-Windows or MacOS in order to make free applications run on them. As
-developer of Emacs and GCC, I accepted changes to make them support
-nonfree systems such as VMS, Windows and MacOS. There was no reason
-to reject that code, but I did not ask people to run nonfree systems
-in order to develop it. These changes were written by people who were using
-those systems anyway, and they also did the packaging of Emacs
-releases for those systems.</p>
+better to avoid, and not suggest to others. For instance, we should
+not ask people to run Windows or MacOS in order to make free
+applications run on them. As developer of Emacs and GCC, I accepted
+changes to make them support nonfree systems such as VMS, Windows and
+MacOS. There was no reason to reject that code, even though people had
+to run nonfree systems to write it, but I did not ask people to run
+nonfree systems in order to work on that.  These changes were written
+by people who were using those systems anyway, and they also did the
+packaging of Emacs releases for those systems.</p>
 
 <p>The &ldquo;developing its own replacement&rdquo; exception is valid within 
its
 limits, and crucial for the progress of free software, but we must
@@ -95,9 +98,9 @@
 <hr />
 
 <p>Occasionally it is necessary to use and even upgrade a nonfree
-system in order to install a free replacement system.  It's not
-exactly the same issue, but the same arguments apply: it is legitimate
-to run some nonfree software momentarily in order to get rid of
+system in order to replace it with a free system.  It's not exactly
+the same issue, but the same arguments apply: it is legitimate to
+recommend running some nonfree software momentarily in order to remove
 it.</p>
 
 </div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above -->
@@ -157,7 +160,7 @@
 
 <p class="unprintable">Updated:
 <!-- timestamp start -->
-$Date: 2015/06/01 17:55:13 $
+$Date: 2015/09/01 20:16:04 $
 <!-- timestamp end -->
 </p>
 </div>