MSOFT versus Open Source movement

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Fri May 4 08:17:27 PDT 2001


Kendall Clark wrote:
>
>
>
> I cringe every time I see or hear a progressive -- who would never
> dream of eating factory-farmed meat, miss a WTO protest, or back away
> from supporting the liberation of women, people of color, and so on --
> blithely using Microsoft products, which has seemed to me a major
> no-no since well before Judge Jackson's ruling.
>

I have not the slightest idea where the meat I eat comes from, nor do I intend to spend a minute finding out. _Except in those cases where a mass movement organizes a formal boycott of a given product_ I will base my consumption choices on nothing else but personal convenience. If and when software comes along that is cheaper, easier to use, more convenient, etc. than Microsoft I'll buy it -- but I'll be damned if I will have my consumption practices regulated by individualist moral choices.

Back a couple decades the Central American solidarity movement tried (with limited success) to mount consumer boycotts against firms that imported coffee from El Salvador. I switched from Folgers Coffee at that time and found two or three brands I liked better and have never gone back. But at the present time I would not refuse on "moral" or political grounds to buy Folgers. (I have not the slightest idea what kind of bastards are the corporations whose coffee I do buy, nor do I care.)

Such individualist moralizing as in this post from Kendall is politically reactionary.



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