Re: [Gnu-arch-users] OT: Slavery???

[Tom Lord]

    > From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" <address@hidden>

    >     Tom> I would _guess_ that you still object to the paraphrase.  But
    >     Tom> could you do us the courtesy of trying to make clear what
    >     Tom> specifically you object to?

    > Yes.  The words "presumption" and "defense".  I don't "presume" that
    > it is non-outrageous.  I simply feel absolutely no outrage, 
    > respect your opinions in general, what I _do_ "presume" is that you
    > know something I don't that leads to that feeling of outrage, and my
    > personal and professional (q.v.) interest is kindled.


Ok, then.   I'll turn it around (still in debugger mode -- one step at
a time).

Part of what offends me about the the BK license is very general: that
it is a _contractual_offer_, and specifically an offer that asks users
to give up their software freedoms in exchange for the legal right to
use the program.  Let's call that issue Question A: "Are Proprietary
Software Licenses Outrageous"?

Now, I haven't answered Question A in this message but I'm willing to
do so in later messages as we step through in debugger mode.  However,
please accept as a temporary axiom that my answer to question A is
"yes" so that I can point out some structure here.  Under the
hypothesis of that temporary axiom, we get to Question B:

"Given that _all_ proprietary software licenses are outrageous, with so
many examples to be bothered about, why does BK's in particular stand
out to such a degree that Tom makes a big fuss about it?"

And my answers there will be about the specific effects of
BK-related-events on the free software community and about some of the
particular details of the BK license.

So are you with me so far?   Will justifying my answer to Questions A
and B answer your personal and professional interest?   Shall we start
with Question A?

-t