[Caml-list] Re: License wars

[michael-grunewald@wanadoo.fr (Michaël Grünewald)]

Matt Gushee <mgushee@havenrock.com> writes:

[...]

> > Oh, these poor little users that want to use software without any
> > effort, that's so lovely ...
> > 
> > Any computer user must have read and understood the licence (or, less
> > bad than nothing, a digest) of the software it uses. This is pointless
> > to care of the ones that do not. Even if they come from the whole
> > majority, faults must not be agreed but fighted against.
> 
> In principle I agree that users should not expect to be able to use
> software without effort. I certainly have invested considerable effort
> to develop my own skills, both as a user and a developer, and I am proud
> that I have done so (and continue to do so). But I also believe that
> computers and software developers should serve society, not vice versa.

I perfectly agree, and i take bringing the words:

    " You have to be responsible, mature, to stand on your own, no one
      will do your job for you, etc. etc. "

and preventing people from a 'puerilistic' (what a beautiful word :)
laziness, as an *important* service to the society.

> You are entitled to take whatever attitude you choose toward users; I
> choose a different attitude from yours. 

I am currently the *only* user for my software :) that is mainly
oriented to help in my computer ady to day use, and sometimes drawing
pretty pictures.

> One reason is that I am interested in using my software to attract
> consulting business, and perhaps at some point to develop a commercial
> product. So for me, users are potentially customers, and if I made
> statements like yours I would not have any customers (actually I have
> none right now anyway, but I'm working on that ;-).

I think it is a lie to pretend one can be able to use a computer without
knowing anything about them. A friend of mine was bond to this believe,
he bought a computer and one week later was turned crazy by the
easy-to-use-and-user-friendly-interface-it-has. The only help i accepted
to give him was a hundred questions list, with a little introduction on
how to use search-engines and usenet, to give him tools for the answer
quest. It did not work since he is a little bit too lazy, but what else
can i do ? will not bring the food to his mouth, would i do ?

[Not pretending you are a lier, i feel you are someone sympathetic.
 Sincerely] 

> You should also note that I am an American living in the U.S., and you
> have to be a little bit stupid to get along in this society. That is one
> of many things I don't like about American culture, but there's not very
> much that one person can do about it.

You can turn (some parts of your softwares :) into Socrates, or meet a
country ground where people are in better spiritual
dispositions. Nothing get me more sad than seeing almost all peoples are
like old children, that have lost childs qualities [aspire to justice,
aspire to communion, aspire to knowledge] and only the flaws remains
[fear, laziness, seek for forgiviveness].

> I agree with you also that one should fight for principles and
> right-thinking, but you have to be moderate if you want people to
> listen ... at least I, in my country, have to; maybe your situation is
> different.
> 
> In any case, if I were uninterested in challenging the status quo, I
> wouldn't be using OCaml, would I?

Objective Caml, the computer language that discriminates philosophs :)
-- 
Michaël Grünewald <michael-grunewald@wanadoo.fr>
-------------------
To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr
Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/
Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners