Subject: Re: [lojban] New to lojban, any suggestions?

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 14:57:48 EDT

In a message dated 8/13/2001 11:54:07 AM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> He has a pencil ...
> 
> He wants to sharpen it so it writes better --
> Damn, he is a cultist snob for wanting to do that.
> (Illegal to modify.)
> 
> He wants to sell it --
> Damn, he is a cultist snob for wanting to do that.
> (Illegal to sell.)
> 
> He wants to give it to a friend --
> Damn, he is a cultist snob for wanting to do that.
> (Illegal to give away.)
> 
> He wants a choice of whom he buys pencils from --
> Damn, he is a cultist snob for wanting to do that.
> (No choice of vendors.)
> 
> He wants to break the pencil --
> Damn, he is a cultist snob for wanting to do that.
> (Again, illegal to modify.)
> 
> He wants the freedom to all these things with his software.
> 
> As another person said, he is `un-American' ....
> 

Cute analogy. Not a good one, but cute. A man has a bought a book it took 
its author 20 years to write. He wants to change a few things in it and pass 
it off as his own. He wants to run off copies and give to his friends or 
sell copies below the going price (he doesn't have to pay the author after 
all). He wants to tear out some pages then demand that the pubisher replace 
the defective copy. And so on. He is quite rightly a criminal in that case.
If you don't want to use MS products, don't. But there is no stigma attached 
to using them (even studpidity is challengeable). And don't whine because 
occasionally something for MSDOS or Windows actually works better than the 
free-spirited stuff (Hell, even Krupp made some good things from time to 
time). On the other hand, realize that many people do use MS products -- for 
whatever reason -- and reach out to them when you have a good idea by 
striving to implement the idea for them as well as for the cult.