Business, Linux, Ethics and Standards - [Was]RE: [Sussex] Yet Ano ther Windows Bug

[Derek Harding]

Will someone tell me how best to continue an already lengthy discussion - should I still include everything that went before?

On the offchance that the answer is, "No," I continue.

The comments by Geoff and Mark about the economic impacts and whether it is added value or raw materials that set the economy and, particularly, Geoff's coments about third world debt and the duties of the greater economies to the lower:

I agree very much with Geoff's analysis - enlightened self-interest is surely more ethical than total consumerism? I would prefer to pay/barter a greater value in order to ensure that the source is sustainable, rather than to bankrupt the source.

When I deal with emerging nations (including eastern Europeans) I find that, for example, sometimes I can't send in second-hand IT kit because 1) the national government see it as showing up their poverty, 2) they don't want to have the hassle of being accused of or penalised for software piracy (OS and apps), 3) they don't have the expertise to operate any other kind of proprietary OS, 4) they can't afford/don't have facilities to fix it when it fails, 5) they don't have the resources to use it properly - whether through unreliable power supplies or human resource deficiencies - and so it goes on. Usually excuses to maintain an appearance of a consumerist economy.

A guy called Maslow built up what is now called Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. It says that, in order to progress, certain needs have to be met a specified stages before it is possible to move to the next stage; for example, if you're busting for a pee you can't concentrate on doing anything else until the need is met. (It's a bit more complex but that's the idea!)

So the family without food or shelter or security will need to satisfy those requirements before they can start to produce their own food, homes or safety. Enlightened self-interest is able to recognise both one's own consumer needs and also the life needs of the provider and profit/low cost, whatever, has to come second.

Anything which tends to a monopoly runs counter to that ethic and it depends upon one's own values and ethics to decide whether or not to be monopolistic.

--
Best wishes,
Derek