[jfruh]

Uh, telling you that the way you make a living is unethical is not the same as wishing harm upon your children. You may not agree with his ethical system (lord knows I don't, it's bonkers) but everyone's economic activities are subject to ethical judgments, even if they're feeding children with their profits. Lots of people raise children in less financially comfortable circumstances than computer programmers, and most of them turn out fine.

Re: RMS's bonkers ethical system: I really don't think he ever moved past the mindset he had in academia, where he was essentially a researcher of how computers do and could work. To him, code should be shared freely just like research in biology and physics is. This has nothing to do with the real world as it exists today, but I do honestly belief that's the germ of his worldview.

[munin]

FYI, code is not shared freely in biology and physics, it's a big problem.

academia is not a hegemony. there are a few people in academia that share beliefs with stallman, there are many others that have no problem with making money off of their work.

[jfruh]

I guess what I meant is not the code people write to conduct the research, but the actual results of that research. As in, you can't copyright a fact. You can't copyright a beaker or a flask. I know there's a lot of debate within the scientific community about commercialization, but I think there was a lot less of this in the '70s when Stallman was forming his ideas.