[Arkcon]

Originally posted by geoschmo:

... is immoral or merely a cultural belief. The question was whether or not copying software was moral. I said it was not and then got roped into a discussion of whether or not anyone has the right to say whether anything is moral or not.

Geoschmo

Hey there, I'm jumping in with a carefully snipped quote from Geo because it meshes well with my point of view.

Consider a "community" of hackers and software crackers, who've developed a "culture" of stealing software.

I think their culture is wrong. A bad culture. Bad. Bad. Bad. ... Bad.

I won't accept the premise that I have to respect that culture -- in my own mind.

I may not have any right to condemn it publicly, or act against it. After all myself or any group that holds similar convictions are as fallible as anyone other individual or group.

But I agree with Geo, the most basic fundamental rules of right and wrong shouldn't be lost on anyone. And I've said so before in a slightly different context. Link: Conceptually it is wrong.

I will agree that maybe stolen software registrations are hard to compare perfectly with a household burglary. And yes, the definition of killing gets messy when we consider warfare, government executions, and heck even the decision not to be a vegan.

But the Golden Rule works pretty good in many instances.

[ July 12, 2003, 03:20: Message edited by: Arkcon ]