The Reformation and the recent Free Software Movement are different revolutions, yet they fight for the same idea: freedom of progression. History has shown two things: 1) free people have no limit to their progression and 2) free people do not always progress.
Reformists pushed for a change in housekeeping. People deserve the right to progress or digress should they please, but the idea of the day was to limit progression in the name of saving traditions.
The Free Software Movement fights the modern authorities of copyright laws like reformists fought the close-minded catholic authoritarians. The Free Software Movement calls for all software to be open for public use (without copyright); it also entails that software should be open for modification and redistribution by consumers.
Now there is a voice from the dust full of promises and warnings to the free people. I reflected on numerous passages of The Book of Mormon, where in God promises prosperity to the nation that keeps his commandments. Progression and prosperity follow proven moral ideals. On the flip-side, we lose that promised progression when we forsake morality.
The Book of Mormon tells of a free people who progressed when they followed God, but eventually they were destroyed because the forsook their moral leaders. (Could a similar destruction happen in the digital age?) Like the Reformation, the Free Software Movement will be successful only if honest, moral people retain control.
No comments:
Post a Comment