I've been thinking more about this since I posted it (and a couple of other comments as well), and I've come to the conclusion that providing a vehicle for strictly anonymous speech is irresponsible. There are simply things one may not say, by any reasonable moral standard. Your secrets, for example, such as your home alarm code, or the location of your children. When all possible consequences for any kind of speech are removed, there is nothing to stop someone from posting nuclear launch codes, the President's schedule, or accusations of child molestation (along with falsified pictures and the route you take to work).
Accountability for speech is the only thing that stops this--but the problem (with, for example, the Chinese dissidents, or someone in fear of losing their job for whistleblowing) is that the community of free speech advocates have a different standard than the repressive regimes or corporations whose members we need to hear from.
I freely admit I don't know the answer to this conundrum. I'm suggesting, for the sake of discussion, that anonymity be set aside in favor of pseudonymity. The system would be so designed that your pseudonym cannot be connected with your real identity (you may even have different pseudonyms--identities--you use for different contexts). But what you post, you take responsibility for under your pseudonym. If you do something sufficiently against community standards, you can be (effectively) silenced, which is the same thing as being banned. (No, this isn't like the real-world consequences of some of the examples of "bad speech" I've posited, but at least it removes any possible reward for posting it).
It's true that there are a few weaknesses with this. Number one is the ability to create an infinite number of pseudonyms--using each to post something obscene. I'm suggesting that the global default for such a system is that (basically) nothing gets seen unless it receives at least one endorsement, so there's not much reward to creating one-post-only pseudonyms. Ah, but the problem then is self-endorsers, thus the necessity for a (possibly loose) body of trust.
And remember, the only consequences and "punishments" in such a system are within the pseudonymous network--no one's real identity is involved, so no one need fear real-world reprisal like losing their jobs or their lives for what they say within that network.
I dunno. I think the shadow monster things in Ico are kind of scary, and the whole "child-in-jeopardy" theme might be a bit disturbing to call it "all ages." I might be more inclined to let my kid play something that seemed more playful, like a sports game, even if it contained some profanity, a little blood, or cheerleaders.
I definitely agree with your overall point, though.
The MPAA owns the trademarks on PG, G, R, etc. To maintain those trademarks, they are legally obligated to *enforce* them, that is, take legal action against any other company that would use the same trademarks.
No. They could allow the other company to use the trademark with permission. Taking legal action against them is just being a tool.
There's no one right answer to this, because it (like every other aspect of hiring/interviewing) varies with who you're talking to. All of the advice in these comments is valid for someone, and invalid for others. Still, my advice:
Don't lie - Don't ever actually lie, but it's fine to omit some information (the 5-week job, for example, or the assholeness of your boss).
Accentuate the positive - I've seen this with applicants who've taken family leave. Explain what you've done to keep current and hone skills in that time. (I thought one poster's advice about doing free IT for charities and/or some free software programming was excellent).
...as long as it's not BS. Sometimes you can snow an interviewer but it's unlikely to be worth the risk. I play dumb in interviews and BSers go directly to the roundfile.
Don't blame anything. I wouldn't even call it "bad luck." It makes it sound like you think your career is something that happens to you rather than something you make happen.
Is it okay to judge your credit card number by the same standard? Where your child goes to school and what ice cream stand they frequent? What the code is for your home alarm system? Are you copacetic with that because other people should know to treat it as unfounded rumor?
I don't know--I'm torn. I do believe that anonymity is probably required to achieve truly free speech. There are, after all, the Chinese dissidents to think of. But it also results in absolute freedom of speech, where you can say anything you want, anytime, consequence-free, which just doesn't work for me either.
Maybe what's needed is pseudonymity, that is, a way to disconnect one's real identity from their identity in various contexts (i.e. as a Chinese dissident), but where they can be held accountable, at least to the extent of being silenced, in that other context.
As far as I can tell, trying to run it with any free java implementation fails--unsurprisingly, since it looks to be impossible, according to Sun's java license, to make a free java implementatino of a java standard post-1.1 (I'm not a Java expert though, and if I'm wrong I'd love to hear it).
I do always find it annoying when a program that claims to be free software is dependent on something that isn't free. I'm not criticizing the desire to use the Java language for free software, but couldn't they have made it compatible with kaffe or something?
But no (reasonable?) philosophy of freedom of speech is absolute. The classic example is shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater; but there are various forms of libel and slander as well. Speech should be free, but that's different from saying you should be able to say whatever you want, in any circumstance.
The actual problem of deciding whether or not to host child porn is a practical and technical problem that results from providing anonymity, not a philosophical one dictated by the goal of free speech. Once we've decided that anonymity is required for truly free speech (and it probably is) that results in some kinds of abuse: this is a necessary consequence of anonymity, not free speech.
Freenet's pass at this problem is to handle it strictly democratically: unpopular files will, by virtue of their obscurity, not get distributed (very much), while popular files (presumably, by definition, not obscene) will get distributed plenty. But there's a trap here, which is that unpopular speech is perhaps most in need of protection.
My own opinion would be that a better system would be accomplished by a framework of authorship and endorsements, a little like Slashdot's moderation system crossed with a web of trust. All content on freenet would be signed (with an anonymized identity). A few users would (voluntarily) take on the task of doing a little filtering and add their (anonymized) endorsement to the file. Most users would view (and could choose to host) only content so endorsed, and could further whitelist or blacklist certain anonymized identities. This allows the various philosophies of hosting and downloading potentially offensive content to co-exist on the same anonymous network. For example, there could be a few standard endorsements like "is not child porn" and I could elect to host only "non-child porn" content, as verified by Alice, Bob and Charlie but not Mallory, because he fooled me once; or Eve, because Charlie doesn't trust her.
Unfortunately, having been a TA for a couple of classes, I know that no professor is actually going to have time to write that much detail about all of the students.
Who cares? That's exactly how ratemyprofessors.com works. There's no fairness in the distribution--it's just whatever a student felt like posting, so why not allow teachers the same dumping ground? Just as with ratemyprofessors.com, the teacher could keep identifying information out of the review. It would be a little harder than with the ratemyprofessors.com but hardly impossible.
I checked out the site--thanks for the pointer.
If you are stupid, and if you are looking for someone who shows movies in class and gives everyone an A, this is an excellent resource!
Thank you for bringing the subject of legitimate legal reform up. I think loser pays is a good idea; I think it should be coupled with some kind of organized legal aid to assist those who can't afford to risk a loss on a potentially expensive lawsuit, but who have a legitimate beef, to bring their suit.
I also think the state, and not the plaintiff, should collect all punitive damages. This removes the "giant payday" incentive of lawyers and plaintiffs to try and make a lawsuit out of all and sundry. Any kind of compensatory damages, including those for pain and suffering, still get awarded to the plaintiff; and big awards are still possible (after all there's no point for big companies to even follow the law if all the potential awards are trivial), but the plaintiff, and his or her lawyers, do not profit from them.
The bill to which you refer in your "Democrats" link doesn't address any of these things, so it appears to just be a bit of partisan digging. And since it looks to make it impossible to sue a corporation incorporated in Delaware for damages to a class in Nevada (2/3 of the plaintiffs and the defendant must be from the state or it goes to federal court at the behest of the defendant) I couldn't support that.
I agree with you that meaningful legal reform is unlikely to happen soon, and when the vast majority of our lawmakers--Republican and Democrat--are lawyers themselves, I hold out little hope of that changing.
Then the prof can cite evidence to the contrary and demonstrate what a great prof they are.
In order to do this on a fair basis, the student's identity would have to be known so that the credibility of the review could be called into question. If a student claims that the professor didn't cover 50% of the material that was included on the final, the professor should have the right to respond, equally publically, that the student only attended 50% of the classes.
Yes, well, part of the point is that it really had nothing to do with whether he would win or not; the fact is that the nuisance, expense and risk of a lawsuit, even a (likely--but never any guarantees) successfully defended one, is a sufficient bludgeon to make it not worth it to operate the site.
By the way, it looks like the site's going back up, more or less. But only because the professor in question withdrew his threat.
Wow, you've really got your religions mixed up, huh? Here's a hint: "jihad" is a term from Islam, a religion based on books written 1400 years ago by some people in what is now known as Saudi Arabia. Neither Christianity nor Judaism has a concept quite like jihad, though of course all three have some very similar concepts otherwise.
Well, I'm not going to second-guess the poster--I think he or she was using the term because it has a negative connotation for westerners, to highlight the evil of the kind of intolerance that leads to holy war (implying that moral absolutism and intolerance are related). But that's just how I read it.
In any case, yes, the literal term jihad describes Islamic holy war, but the term crusade means exactly the same thing, and several of them have been prosecuted in the history of Christianity; so I don't think it's quite accurate to say there is no such concept in that religion.
Almost all of the technology workers I know devote part of their income (which is considerably more than is paid to their outsourced counterparts) to charity and philanthropy. In my office, we support research into cures for diseases, care for the elderly, sanitation and improvements in the third world, just to name a few. How much do you give to charity? If it's less than is typical for the US worker you replace (as I imagine it must be, just on the basis of compensation) what effect do you think that will have on the quality of life for recipients of philanthropy?
I only do technical interviewing; and believe me, if you put "some experience with SQL" on your resume and what you've really done is crammed some book, you will be bitchslapped hard. I do hire people on the strength of other skills when they are "missing" some requirements (esp. when those requirements are education-related) but if you lie or exaggerate on your resume, I won't even continue the interview.
I have a BS in Zoology, have taken a few vendor classes, and have no certifications. So far (here I'll cross my fingers) I haven't had trouble getting good jobs. I worked in clinical labs, got myself inserted into a computer implementation project there and that's how I got into IT. My first hardcore tech job I got on the strength of a code sample; the technical part of the interview was just to determine if I'd written it or not. Every job since then I've gotten from people who knew me. Along the way I've been a system administrator, an Oracle database administrator, a programmer and a security analyst, and I've come across lots of fellow travelers who had found their way to the same spot through very different paths--everyone needs to find their own way.
I've also had a lot of opportunity to evaluate and hire people. Believe me, a code sample or a relevant anecdote about a tough problem you've solved is worth thousands of certifications, at least if I'm on the other side of the desk. Hiring is all about, "If I throw you in the pool, will you swim, or will you expect me to hold you up? Will you get your sh*t done, even if you run across obstacles; or will you be lost when something doesn't fit the task guide? Will you find the tools you need, or will you expect me to provide them?" Certifications answer none of these questions for me, all they tell me is that you were able to study for and pass a test on a given day. At best, it's not very helpful, at worst, I can tell you think it's important: and that's bad because it tells me you don't have a lot of the experience I think is valuable.
I sympathize with a fresh-out-of-college-or-vocational-school grad who wants a good job, but for whom the "good jobs" are closed to people without experience. Guess what? Everyone wants a good job, and unless you can demonstrate your superiority to all those folks who've proven they can encounter and solve real problems, don't expect me to take a risk because you're pretty (Oh wait, you said CS, make that "not as ugly as others"--yes, that's a joke). A coworker who was pretty young got his first experience doing system and network administration for his friend's ISP--for free--and writing a web-based application to administer all the accounts and let the customers do self-service payments, mail-forwarding, etc. That was his path, not mine: I can't endorse either one, but I do know that unless you've done something to demonstrate your motivation and ability, besides passing a test, you're unlikely to fare that well in a tight job market.
I don't have certs because I could probably teach most of the cert classes that relate to the job (I'm not talking about CCIE or oracle or other high-end stuff).
I was an Oracle DBA for seven years. In my experience when someone walked in to interview with some kind of certification (in particular the "certified Oracle DBA") I could pretty much send them packing right then. I'm not saying getting the cert always indicates you are a numbnuts, but I've yet to find a counterexample. Oracle training is actually quite good overall, but if someone needs to take a test to prove they know something then they probably don't (or they just did for a day).
I don't know what you mean by that: do you think my example is a lie, or that it does in fact illustrate being accountable to the user community?
I have software vendors in house actively listening to our needs/complaints and providing answers. In short, the type of service that a linux newsgroup or slashdot can never provide.
So you're comparing paid-for support with slashdot? And you accuse me of attacking straw men?
What gave you the impression you can't pay for support, or development, of free software?
You're putting words in my mouth.
Maybe, but they're the right ones:
Software is not an ethical choice.
In that case, I assume we're ethically free to copy or redistribute proprietary software outside of the terms of the license, if it makes us money? To insert instructions in the software we sell that reports information about its users, without their knowledge?
Last I checked no software house I know of was using forced child labor to produce thier product.
And if they did, would you choose different software? According to you, you would not, since:
All my employeer cares about is getting stuff that works for us.
I don't see any room for child-labor exceptions in that statement. How is software any less of an ethical choice than choosing where to locate your business?
All my employeer cares about is getting stuff that works for us.
What you're saying here is, essentially: ethics don't matter, and shouldn't matter, as long as it maximizes profit for my business.
Besides the fact that this stance is amoral, surely you can see the problem when this argument is turned against you in your relationship with your vendor? If you are purchasing proprietary software, your vendor is treating you with the same amoral lack of regard with which you treat others: his or her motivation is to maximize their profit, at the expense of your freedom to use the software in the manner that works best for you.
If that means you pay someone to develop the software, then we will. Gladly.
Glad to hear it--and isn't it much better for you if the software you've paid for is free: you can do with it what you wish?
My point is that if you want to see Linux and other OSS software used, sooner or later someone in the OSS community has to step up and be held accountable to the user community.
What's funny about this comment is that being answerable to the user community is exactly what proprietary software vendors are not--they are answerable to the market, which isn't the same thing at all. Free software development is far more user-centric, and the developers often answerable to their users in a more direct and personal way, than proprietary software development. Typically features get added to free software programs because someone needs or wants to use them--whereas features are added to proprietary software because they are good for the vendor, not for you.
I'll give you an example: I worked at an internet portal company, and we were commissioned--that is, directly paid--by a popular CPU manufacturer to develop a new version of our search product for the expressed purpose of making it computationally more intensive, so that computer users would be forced to buy new, faster CPUs. How is that being "held accountable to the user community?"
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks a lot for your thoughtful reply--truly.
I've been thinking more about this since I posted it (and a couple of other comments as well), and I've come to the conclusion that providing a vehicle for strictly anonymous speech is irresponsible. There are simply things one may not say, by any reasonable moral standard. Your secrets, for example, such as your home alarm code, or the location of your children. When all possible consequences for any kind of speech are removed, there is nothing to stop someone from posting nuclear launch codes, the President's schedule, or accusations of child molestation (along with falsified pictures and the route you take to work).
Accountability for speech is the only thing that stops this--but the problem (with, for example, the Chinese dissidents, or someone in fear of losing their job for whistleblowing) is that the community of free speech advocates have a different standard than the repressive regimes or corporations whose members we need to hear from.
I freely admit I don't know the answer to this conundrum. I'm suggesting, for the sake of discussion, that anonymity be set aside in favor of pseudonymity. The system would be so designed that your pseudonym cannot be connected with your real identity (you may even have different pseudonyms--identities--you use for different contexts). But what you post, you take responsibility for under your pseudonym. If you do something sufficiently against community standards, you can be (effectively) silenced, which is the same thing as being banned. (No, this isn't like the real-world consequences of some of the examples of "bad speech" I've posited, but at least it removes any possible reward for posting it).
It's true that there are a few weaknesses with this. Number one is the ability to create an infinite number of pseudonyms--using each to post something obscene. I'm suggesting that the global default for such a system is that (basically) nothing gets seen unless it receives at least one endorsement, so there's not much reward to creating one-post-only pseudonyms. Ah, but the problem then is self-endorsers, thus the necessity for a (possibly loose) body of trust.
And remember, the only consequences and "punishments" in such a system are within the pseudonymous network--no one's real identity is involved, so no one need fear real-world reprisal like losing their jobs or their lives for what they say within that network.
I dunno. I think the shadow monster things in Ico are kind of scary, and the whole "child-in-jeopardy" theme might be a bit disturbing to call it "all ages." I might be more inclined to let my kid play something that seemed more playful, like a sports game, even if it contained some profanity, a little blood, or cheerleaders.
I definitely agree with your overall point, though.
No. They could allow the other company to use the trademark with permission. Taking legal action against them is just being a tool.
There's no one right answer to this, because it (like every other aspect of hiring/interviewing) varies with who you're talking to. All of the advice in these comments is valid for someone, and invalid for others. Still, my advice:
Is it okay to judge your credit card number by the same standard? Where your child goes to school and what ice cream stand they frequent? What the code is for your home alarm system? Are you copacetic with that because other people should know to treat it as unfounded rumor?
I don't know--I'm torn. I do believe that anonymity is probably required to achieve truly free speech. There are, after all, the Chinese dissidents to think of. But it also results in absolute freedom of speech, where you can say anything you want, anytime, consequence-free, which just doesn't work for me either.
Maybe what's needed is pseudonymity, that is, a way to disconnect one's real identity from their identity in various contexts (i.e. as a Chinese dissident), but where they can be held accountable, at least to the extent of being silenced, in that other context.
As far as I can tell, trying to run it with any free java implementation fails--unsurprisingly, since it looks to be impossible, according to Sun's java license, to make a free java implementatino of a java standard post-1.1 (I'm not a Java expert though, and if I'm wrong I'd love to hear it).
I do always find it annoying when a program that claims to be free software is dependent on something that isn't free. I'm not criticizing the desire to use the Java language for free software, but couldn't they have made it compatible with kaffe or something?
Sorry, but 'huh?' I don't know what this is supposed to mean.
But no (reasonable?) philosophy of freedom of speech is absolute. The classic example is shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater; but there are various forms of libel and slander as well. Speech should be free, but that's different from saying you should be able to say whatever you want, in any circumstance.
The actual problem of deciding whether or not to host child porn is a practical and technical problem that results from providing anonymity, not a philosophical one dictated by the goal of free speech. Once we've decided that anonymity is required for truly free speech (and it probably is) that results in some kinds of abuse: this is a necessary consequence of anonymity, not free speech.
Freenet's pass at this problem is to handle it strictly democratically: unpopular files will, by virtue of their obscurity, not get distributed (very much), while popular files (presumably, by definition, not obscene) will get distributed plenty. But there's a trap here, which is that unpopular speech is perhaps most in need of protection.
My own opinion would be that a better system would be accomplished by a framework of authorship and endorsements, a little like Slashdot's moderation system crossed with a web of trust. All content on freenet would be signed (with an anonymized identity). A few users would (voluntarily) take on the task of doing a little filtering and add their (anonymized) endorsement to the file. Most users would view (and could choose to host) only content so endorsed, and could further whitelist or blacklist certain anonymized identities. This allows the various philosophies of hosting and downloading potentially offensive content to co-exist on the same anonymous network. For example, there could be a few standard endorsements like "is not child porn" and I could elect to host only "non-child porn" content, as verified by Alice, Bob and Charlie but not Mallory, because he fooled me once; or Eve, because Charlie doesn't trust her.
Who cares? That's exactly how ratemyprofessors.com works. There's no fairness in the distribution--it's just whatever a student felt like posting, so why not allow teachers the same dumping ground? Just as with ratemyprofessors.com, the teacher could keep identifying information out of the review. It would be a little harder than with the ratemyprofessors.com but hardly impossible.
Do you ask everyone to evaluate students, or just the ones that feel a need to make their evaluation public?
I checked out the site--thanks for the pointer. If you are stupid, and if you are looking for someone who shows movies in class and gives everyone an A, this is an excellent resource!
Thank you for bringing the subject of legitimate legal reform up. I think loser pays is a good idea; I think it should be coupled with some kind of organized legal aid to assist those who can't afford to risk a loss on a potentially expensive lawsuit, but who have a legitimate beef, to bring their suit.
I also think the state, and not the plaintiff, should collect all punitive damages. This removes the "giant payday" incentive of lawyers and plaintiffs to try and make a lawsuit out of all and sundry. Any kind of compensatory damages, including those for pain and suffering, still get awarded to the plaintiff; and big awards are still possible (after all there's no point for big companies to even follow the law if all the potential awards are trivial), but the plaintiff, and his or her lawyers, do not profit from them.
The bill to which you refer in your "Democrats" link doesn't address any of these things, so it appears to just be a bit of partisan digging. And since it looks to make it impossible to sue a corporation incorporated in Delaware for damages to a class in Nevada (2/3 of the plaintiffs and the defendant must be from the state or it goes to federal court at the behest of the defendant) I couldn't support that.
I agree with you that meaningful legal reform is unlikely to happen soon, and when the vast majority of our lawmakers--Republican and Democrat--are lawyers themselves, I hold out little hope of that changing.
In order to do this on a fair basis, the student's identity would have to be known so that the credibility of the review could be called into question. If a student claims that the professor didn't cover 50% of the material that was included on the final, the professor should have the right to respond, equally publically, that the student only attended 50% of the classes.
Yes, well, part of the point is that it really had nothing to do with whether he would win or not; the fact is that the nuisance, expense and risk of a lawsuit, even a (likely--but never any guarantees) successfully defended one, is a sufficient bludgeon to make it not worth it to operate the site.
By the way, it looks like the site's going back up, more or less. But only because the professor in question withdrew his threat.
Well, I'm not going to second-guess the poster--I think he or she was using the term because it has a negative connotation for westerners, to highlight the evil of the kind of intolerance that leads to holy war (implying that moral absolutism and intolerance are related). But that's just how I read it.
In any case, yes, the literal term jihad describes Islamic holy war, but the term crusade means exactly the same thing, and several of them have been prosecuted in the history of Christianity; so I don't think it's quite accurate to say there is no such concept in that religion.
Almost all of the technology workers I know devote part of their income (which is considerably more than is paid to their outsourced counterparts) to charity and philanthropy. In my office, we support research into cures for diseases, care for the elderly, sanitation and improvements in the third world, just to name a few. How much do you give to charity? If it's less than is typical for the US worker you replace (as I imagine it must be, just on the basis of compensation) what effect do you think that will have on the quality of life for recipients of philanthropy?
At the movie theater where I saw it, we screened with a 10-minute intermission.
Just a "me too" post; it was probably even the same article.
Zoology here, and I'll third that sentiment.
I only do technical interviewing; and believe me, if you put "some experience with SQL" on your resume and what you've really done is crammed some book, you will be bitchslapped hard. I do hire people on the strength of other skills when they are "missing" some requirements (esp. when those requirements are education-related) but if you lie or exaggerate on your resume, I won't even continue the interview.
I have a BS in Zoology, have taken a few vendor classes, and have no certifications. So far (here I'll cross my fingers) I haven't had trouble getting good jobs. I worked in clinical labs, got myself inserted into a computer implementation project there and that's how I got into IT. My first hardcore tech job I got on the strength of a code sample; the technical part of the interview was just to determine if I'd written it or not. Every job since then I've gotten from people who knew me. Along the way I've been a system administrator, an Oracle database administrator, a programmer and a security analyst, and I've come across lots of fellow travelers who had found their way to the same spot through very different paths--everyone needs to find their own way.
I've also had a lot of opportunity to evaluate and hire people. Believe me, a code sample or a relevant anecdote about a tough problem you've solved is worth thousands of certifications, at least if I'm on the other side of the desk. Hiring is all about, "If I throw you in the pool, will you swim, or will you expect me to hold you up? Will you get your sh*t done, even if you run across obstacles; or will you be lost when something doesn't fit the task guide? Will you find the tools you need, or will you expect me to provide them?" Certifications answer none of these questions for me, all they tell me is that you were able to study for and pass a test on a given day. At best, it's not very helpful, at worst, I can tell you think it's important: and that's bad because it tells me you don't have a lot of the experience I think is valuable.
I sympathize with a fresh-out-of-college-or-vocational-school grad who wants a good job, but for whom the "good jobs" are closed to people without experience. Guess what? Everyone wants a good job, and unless you can demonstrate your superiority to all those folks who've proven they can encounter and solve real problems, don't expect me to take a risk because you're pretty (Oh wait, you said CS, make that "not as ugly as others"--yes, that's a joke). A coworker who was pretty young got his first experience doing system and network administration for his friend's ISP--for free--and writing a web-based application to administer all the accounts and let the customers do self-service payments, mail-forwarding, etc. That was his path, not mine: I can't endorse either one, but I do know that unless you've done something to demonstrate your motivation and ability, besides passing a test, you're unlikely to fare that well in a tight job market.
I was an Oracle DBA for seven years. In my experience when someone walked in to interview with some kind of certification (in particular the "certified Oracle DBA") I could pretty much send them packing right then. I'm not saying getting the cert always indicates you are a numbnuts, but I've yet to find a counterexample. Oracle training is actually quite good overall, but if someone needs to take a test to prove they know something then they probably don't (or they just did for a day).
I don't know what you mean by that: do you think my example is a lie, or that it does in fact illustrate being accountable to the user community?
So you're comparing paid-for support with slashdot? And you accuse me of attacking straw men?
What gave you the impression you can't pay for support, or development, of free software?
Maybe, but they're the right ones:
In that case, I assume we're ethically free to copy or redistribute proprietary software outside of the terms of the license, if it makes us money? To insert instructions in the software we sell that reports information about its users, without their knowledge?
And if they did, would you choose different software? According to you, you would not, since:
I don't see any room for child-labor exceptions in that statement. How is software any less of an ethical choice than choosing where to locate your business?
What you're saying here is, essentially: ethics don't matter, and shouldn't matter, as long as it maximizes profit for my business.
Besides the fact that this stance is amoral, surely you can see the problem when this argument is turned against you in your relationship with your vendor? If you are purchasing proprietary software, your vendor is treating you with the same amoral lack of regard with which you treat others: his or her motivation is to maximize their profit, at the expense of your freedom to use the software in the manner that works best for you.
Glad to hear it--and isn't it much better for you if the software you've paid for is free: you can do with it what you wish?
What's funny about this comment is that being answerable to the user community is exactly what proprietary software vendors are not--they are answerable to the market, which isn't the same thing at all. Free software development is far more user-centric, and the developers often answerable to their users in a more direct and personal way, than proprietary software development. Typically features get added to free software programs because someone needs or wants to use them--whereas features are added to proprietary software because they are good for the vendor, not for you.
I'll give you an example: I worked at an internet portal company, and we were commissioned--that is, directly paid--by a popular CPU manufacturer to develop a new version of our search product for the expressed purpose of making it computationally more intensive, so that computer users would be forced to buy new, faster CPUs. How is that being "held accountable to the user community?"
You want altavista advanced search: (linux AND modems) OR ("AT commands" AND NOT windows). I know, not the C-like shorthand you want, but you can do the search you like.