[ale] [Fwd: Pirate Banned from Using Linux]

[Jeff Lightner]

Your argument equates the ultimate penalty (death) to an inconvenience
(use of Windoze) and I don't buy it.   Of course I've never bought the
"mental anguish" type of "damages" often seen in civil suits either.   

It all reminds me for some reason of the guy who slows down at a stop
sign to see if anyone is coming but never actually stops.   A cop pulls
him over for not stopping.   He says to the officer "I slowed down -
what's the difference?"  The officer cuffs him and bends him over the
hood then starts hitting the scofflaw with his nightstick and says "Now
- would you like me to stop or just slow down?"

-----Original Message-----
From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of
To: ale at ale.org
Michael B. Trausch
Sent: Monday, August 27, 2007 2:06 PM
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
Subject: Re: [ale] [Fwd: Pirate Banned from Using Linux]

Jeff Lightner, on 08/27/2007 01:41 PM said:
> 
> I'm guessing if putting someone in jail isn't "considered an 
> unreasonable restriction on freedom" then telling someone where they
> can shop wouldn't be either.   It's not as if they randomly picked
> this guy up and said "hey you have to use Windows now".   He was
> restricted for pirating based on the subject.
> 
> This guy got off lucky at that - there was a previous hacker that was
> prohibited from ever touching any computer again.
> 

True, but if you screw up badly enough operating a car, you have that
taken away from you as well.  It no person's right to be perpetually
harmful to others---but I do have some issues with the way that we've
defined "harmful" in our society.

That having been said, if you're perpetually killing people with cars,
or stealing from others using a technology (or just sticky fingers), it
would seem that is what jail is for---to take you out of the loop, and
spend time thinking and the like, perhaps (hopefully) realizing that if
you don't want to go to jail again, you ought to behave.

Either way, if you break the law, you certainly implicitly agree to make
concessions in your life if you are caught, regardless for the reason
the law was broken.  It just doesn't make sense, however, to require
monitoring and then say that you have to use Windows because of that
requirement---there is no sound technical explanation for such a
requirement, and to me, that's enough to call it cruel and unusual
punishment.

In a world where you have to carry out a death sentence "humanely,"
certainly there is merit to also being humane to people that cannot bear
certain instances of software from a particular category.  It's just as
ridiculous as saying that someone should be banned from using Bittorrent
at all, because Bittorrent isn't used exclusively for copyright
violation.  It is a legitimate distribution mechanism for many people
who want to share their own things---or open things like various
distributions of GNU/Linux---and save server bandwidth at the same time.

	-- Mike

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