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]

Le 03/08/2014 à 06h48, Richard Stallman a écrit :
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
>     I didn t say that. I did say that both conditions *should*
>     *anyway* be respected. Then I don t think we can say one is better
>     than the other, since importance isn t a linear thing.
>
> Here is where your views conflict deeply with the central ethical
> principle of the free software movement.
>
> Our central principle is that a proprietary program is evil and worse
> than nothing, but a free program that is useful for at least one
> person is better than nothing.  A free program that does an important
> job, and can be used by 99% of users, is a very good thing -- even if
> accessibility would make it better.

Yes it is. But then it is bad that some users (not surely only 1%) will
only be able to use proprietary software, and won’t use free
software. It is also bad that a government of any inclusive organization
could not chose a free alternative because of needing to still include
some disabled people. It is also bad that in your life you always have
the risk to become disabled, and so to become unable to use free
software and thus to be free. These are bad things. They absolutely, in
no way, mean that a non accessible free software is always worse than
nothing. But they’re still bad.

Also you could notice that *sometimes* a non accessible free software
can be worse than nothing (not worse that the existence of only one
proprietary software) when it creates social exclusion, like in the case
of a communication software which wouldn’t be accessible. Being used by
people it would exclude some disabled people from this new community,
while otherwise they wouldn’t.

> We can work with you in encouraging developers to build in
> accessibility from the start provided you make a commitment not to
> oppose our central ethical principle.

Your central ethical principle is that software freedom (in your
meaning, the one exclusively opposing to oppression) is always good. And
it is okay and we agree with it. What we add is that software
accessibility is also a good thing and a very important principle for
any egalitarian and inclusive society. Therefore, the best we can do is
promote software freedom within accessibility and software accessibility
within freedom.

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