On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 8:02 AM, Luke -Jr [email protected] wrote:
On Thursday 13 March 2008, Leo Mauler wrote:
Note the lack of quotation marks around my own words in the phrase "Luke-Jr ... regards 'ndiswrapper' as a kind of apostasy" (the one above, obviously not this one). "Apostasy" generally means "becoming immoral" or "adopting immoral behaviors" (both of which aren't that much different from the strict dictionary definition, "leaving one's religion").
Well, it looks like in this case you are only to blame for taking past tense as present, though I am as much to blame for having voiced such in the past and not remembering to correct them afterward.
I pretty much nailed your exact opinion of "ndiswrapper", which you revealed during a KCLUG list discussion from December 2005 to January 2006, "Linux on older laptops"
To revise my opinion, because it is indeed merely an opinion, I will state for the record:
- I have no authority to speak on morality myself (only cite such
authority).
- Therefore, unless someone with authority judges proprietary software
to be immoral, I cannot assert it is.
- Therefore, ndiswrapper is not inherently immoral.
- ndiswrapper in fact adds support for NDIS, apparently an open standard
for network drivers, to Linux
- Since most NDIS drivers are proprietary and thus GPL-incompatible, this
NDIS layer can be used (abused?) to legally bypass the GPL. _______________________________________________ Kclug mailing list [email protected] http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug
Ok- so in concept could not one apply using WINE as equally tainting of GPL? Since the vast majority of uses for WINE are to execute "proprietary" code.
We need to examine perhaps if using non-GPL code is either situationally ethical or unconditionally an ethics risk.