Re: [Audio-video] [Liberté 0] Re: http://audio-video.gnu.org/video/ghm2013/Samuel_Thibault_Jean-Philippe_Mengual-Freedom_0_for_everybody_really_.text

[Garreau\, Alexandre]

On 2014-07-21 at 12:54, Armony ALTINIER wrote:
> Richard wrote to Samuel:
>>>> But your blindness does not make you ethically entitled to order a
>>>> specific person do specific work to help you out.
>>>
>>> Well, I wouldn't say "order", but quite close.
>>
>> How close? What power do you believe you are entitled to?
>
> When you "order" people to share the code they wrote, you do it because
> it is fair, because the freedom of the developer to not share his/her
> work doesn't worth the freedom of the users to use it. Because the
> selfish freedom to earn money from a secret code you don't share isn't
> as important as the freedom of the majority, because /you/ consider (so
> do I) knowledge is a common good.

Well, actually, as said already Richard here
<https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or-power.html> it’s because the
“freedom” of denying others freedom isn’t a freedom but a
power. Therefore it can’t be accepted. “Selfish freedom”, in the context
on a society, is an oxymoron, because freedom of one always the freedom
of others, so “selfish freedom” is power, thus not real freedom. So you
can say people “do not put a proprietary license on your software”
because they’re using the State concept of property to deny users
freedom. He also says “do not make others use a program you don’t let
them know how it works” because it would be make them using a malware
and thus denying again their freedom.

Not making a program accessible is not an analogous “freedom denying”
since it is most of the time made by ignorance, unlike proprietary
software which is made proprietary by informed unconsciousness. Ability
(what I call technical freedom, and Richard don’t even want to see it
called “freedom” in any manner) is lowered because of involuntary
ignorance, rights (social freedom, what Richard just call “freedom”) are
because of voluntary expression of the will of one on the top of the
will of others, fact which lower the freedom of all society (including
the one doing oppression), thus by the lack of consideration of the
expression of life and will of one within the context of a society (what
I simply call “unconsciousness”).

Making proprietary software is an erroneous choice, making non
accessible is an error, but isn’t a choice though. If it were it would
be oppression as well.

> We think the same for accessibility. It is a question of choice: what
> kind of society do you want to live in?
>
> If you think Freedom is a common good for the whole Humanity, you
> /*must*/ take accessibility into account. If you code in an inaccessible
> manner, you will create discrimination. If it is not a problem for you,
> go on.

Like underlined Samuel, it’s a question of technical freedom of
*everybody*. Because living in an accessible society means that if some
day you have an accident, and lose the usage of legs, arms, voice, eyes
or hears, you’ll still be able to live and participate to society,
science, art and so on, so you’re “free” to do it (the word you would
like to use here is “able” I think, but as I said “free” as a lot of
different meanings, and we just can’t do as if there were only one).

> It reminds me those "coal rolling" supporters. They voluntary pollute to
> protest against the ecologic measures that reduce their "right to
> pollute". In ecology as in the accessibility field, we cannot achieve a
> more human society without the participation of everyone.

The “right to pollute” or “freedom to pollute” is also an oxymoron,
because being “free” of denying the freedom of others still isn’t a
freedom but a power. Thus they’re not executing a freedom but a power on
the rest of the population, especially the future population. It
prevents others doing something, because it is made by the will of
imposing the will of one to others, thus it’s oppression, not lack of
functionality.

For instance, if you pollute because you need something that pollute to
live (let’s say you’re disabled in some ways and to live you need a
special machine that pollute a lot to be produced) and scientists don’t
know how to make you live without polluting, it is made by ignorance,
not choice/unconsciousness, thus it’s not oppression. Non-accessible
software being made by ignorance of how to code well, it is not
oppression, though it still prevent others to do something they want,
it’s not for the same reasons, so it’s different.

> Make inaccessible code is like make polluted code. If you think your
> right to make polluted/inaccessible code is more important than the
> right for people to not be excluded, we definitely have a different
> approach of Freedom and Human rights.

If software were not accessible for such reasons “I have the perfectly
equal choice (making it accessible doesn’t require to know or do
something more that weren’t already known or done) of doing an
accessible or a non accessible software, I know the implication of it
and I chose to make an non accessible software just for limiting others
freedom” it would be oppression and an harm of what Richard call
“freedom”. But it’s not the case, so it’s limited to being a
“functionality” (a “technical freedom” as I call it).

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