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0 pointsJedd10y ago0 comments

You appear to be missing the point here.

To many people, non-free software is sub-par because of its non-freeness.

Using (tacitly agreeing with and supporting) non-free software is consequently contra to their ethics.

No horses are involved.

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curun1r10y ago· 2 in thread

So when it's your choice what software to use, you can use your definition of better. The high horse comes when you try to tell other people to use your definition of better. Like the link we're discussing. The person is telling others, who've decided they like Slack better than the free alternatives, that they should stop using it. That's getting on a high horse.

You don't see a lot of pragmatists telling free software proponents that they should be using non-free software. Unfortunately, the reverse situation is very common.

JeddOP10y ago

I'd change your qualifier from "when it's your choice" to "when it's your choice and your choice doesn't adversely affect anyone else".

Here, I think, we're talking about free software projects sending wrong or mixed messages to their users & contributors. Which is the adverse effect alluded to -- it obliges your users to use non-free software.

This may discourage some of your potential users & contributors, and that may reduce the quality of your project. And that, in turn, may be something you as someone running a free software project had not considered, and, on reflection, do not want.

Slightly perturbed you're using the word pragmatist as a synonym for someone that uses or advocates non-free software.

Arguably anyone casting an opinion is 'on their high horse', especially if it's orthogonal to your own opinion.

st3v3r10y ago

"This may discourage some of your potential users & contributors, and that may reduce the quality of your project."

The exact same argument was made about not discouraging non-technical users who don't want to bother with the arcane-ness that is IRC, and the reply was that they don't matter.

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