Subject: Peace agreement

From: Mikhael Goikhman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 00:27:17 +0000

I urge everyone to stop all unnecessary run-ins.
Noone will win from ultimatums and wars.
Let's show we can do it peacefully without losing people.

Here is what we will do:

* Dedicate at least 2.4.16 and 2.5.7 to all victims of the war.
  Every developer will sign it as a sign of reconciliation.

* All statements except for GNU GPL are excluded from cvs.

* Everyone shows a respect to the Dominik's full years of work by not
  trying to attack him in the future, and Dominik reconsiders his prior
  steps.  Attacking each other on code related issues is ok. :-)

* We try to abstain from controversial talks on these forums.

* We forget all disputs and return to code and to the birthday
  preparations.

I hope this is reasonable. Please agree.

Dominik, OK?

Dan, OK?

All developers who are not signed yet, OK?

Everyone else who participated, OK?

Regards,
Mikhael.
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---

From: Dan Espen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2003 20:42:33 -0500

> I hope this is reasonable. Please agree.

Yes.

-- 
Dan Espen                           E-mail: [email-masked]

---

From: Bob Woodside <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2003 21:55:58 -0500

On Wed, 2 Apr 2003 00:27:17 +0000

> Let's show we can do it peacefully without losing people.

	I think that's the finest thing we could do to promote peace and
cooperation...demonstrating it by example.

>   trying to attack him in the future, and Dominik reconsiders his
>   prior steps.  Attacking each other on code related issues is ok. :-)
> 

	Love to. Time is getting short.

> Everyone else who participated, OK?

	OK.

pax vobiscum,
Bob

---

From: Olivier Chapuis <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 10:35:48 +0200

> I hope this is reasonable. Please agree.

I am agree. By the way I do not participate to all these discutions
not only because my new job take almost all my times.

Olivier

---

From: Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 15:32:23 +0200

> I hope this is reasonable. Please agree.

I need more time to think.

Bye

Dominik ^_^  ^_^

---

From: Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 21:39:07 +0200

> I need more time to think.

I have one question, and I really hope some can help me find an
answer.

Assuming I decide to forget all that has happened and stay in this
place.  How am I going to resolve the conflict between my
conscience and publishing my work without restrictions?  I believe
the fact that this conflict exists did not get the attention it
should have in the argument we had.

Bye

Dominik ^_^  ^_^

---

From: Mikhael Goikhman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 20:33:20 +0000

> should have in the argument we had.

I think you should not feel any pangs of conscience by writting a good
software. Several people already said what I am going to say, but I want
to try one more time.

People invent and create things to make their lives more confortable.

For example, a tape can be used to listen to a nice music. But it can be
used to create strong noise. It can be used to physically hit someone.
Do you think a tape is a non-ethical invention? I don't think so.

Software is just a set of bits (or megabytes) linked together.
If we speak about such common software things like kernel, system
libraries (libc), window manager, shell, terminal emulator, image library
and so on, it is pretty clear to everyone that these things are neutral.
Just like computers by themselves are neutral, or an electricity is a
pretty peaceful invention. Without an electricity we would not have our
computers, food, clothes.

You are in no way help unethical people any more than computer firms or
other free software volunteers do. But you help nice people for sure.

Regards,
Mikhael.

---

From: Dan Espen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2003 15:36:44 -0500

> should have in the argument we had.

I don't want to make light of your inner turmoil, but
evil people use that other OS.

There are no evil people using Fvwm.

Well, maybe some spammers, but I'm pretty sure not even spammers.

I don't understand why you see a necessary connection between
programming Fvwm and the war.  They don't have anything to
do with each other.

I'm guessing you just want a public way to express your
frustration with world events.

I respect your feelings that this war is wrong, but I think this
project is the wrong place to try to spread that message.
There are other people involved in this project.
I got the impression that they don't want to convert this
project to an antiwar project.

If you can convince them that they should, then you should
convince before you commit changes.  Just like we've done in
the past with other controversial changes.

Since I use and support Fvwm in a commercial environment,
I feel I have no choice but to not install software with
a political message.

I hope this helps.

---

From: Cameron Simpson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 11:46:34 +1000

On 21:39 02 Apr 2003, Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]> wrote:
| Assuming I decide to forget all that has happened and stay in this
| place.  How am I going to resolve the conflict between my
| conscience and publishing my work without restrictions?  I believe
| the fact that this conflict exists did not get the attention it
| should have in the argument we had.

Every act one performs has has effects, including "non-acts". Not working
on FVWM has effects. And so forth.

A window manager, like most productivity tools, is a neutral tool in
that any evil facilitated by it is a product of the evil of the work of
the user. Conversely, any good it does is a product of the good of the
work of the user.

One the whole I would expect that users of free software are idealogically
pro-cooperation and against conflict. Probably moreso than the general
population.

The mere possibility that FVWM may be used by someone who contributes to
violence and death, however indirectly (or directly) is not of itself
sufficient reason to cease distribution of the tool. This is because
even if you take the line that there is NO justification for death
and/or violence (which I gather is more or less your standard) it is not
sufficient because war and violence are not the ONLY causes of death.

The flipside is that disease and preventable accident also contribute
to death. It is therefore arguable that aiding the good (by whatever
criteria) users of FVWM may contribute to saving more lives than are
cost by aiding the bad users, given the (estimated) statistical moral
predisposition of the likely FVWM users.

Such an argument is of course dependent on the uses of the work of
the FVWM user population, and that is something you must estimate for
yourself. However, if you take the view that an evil user of FVWM is
aided by FVWM, thus placing a moral burden on you - one of its authors,
you must also accept the logic that good users of FVWM, deprived of it
by your withdrawal, are thus less effective and that this also places
a moral burden on you.

Weighing these two effects is of course something only you can do for
yourself, but both effects exist.

For myself, I think FVWM is a net win for good. I can't prove it.

I hope this gives you something new and useful to consider.

Cheers,
--
Cameron Simpson, DoD#743        [email-masked]    http://www.zip.com.au/~cs/

Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless
means to side with the powerful, not to be Neutral.
	- Quote by Freire. Poster by OXFAM.
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---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 23:43:48 +0200

> I need more time to think.

Time is up, the uneasy silence has to end, life has to go on.  I
feel obliged to reply to some statements that have been made, some
of which are fundamentally in error.  Some of these were made in
private, but I hope nobody will be angry with me for quoting them.
And I do not want to belittle anyone by not quoting him or her.

> This is the fundamental assumption I think many of the other
> respondents have brought to this thread -- that a moral judgment
> is private, personal and whenever possible should be respected.

I have to most fervently disagree with this opinion.  If moral
were private it had no meaning at all.  Moral must be shared by
many to make sense.  Sadly, this attitude is widespread nowadays,
at least in the society I live in.  Many people withdraw into
privacy, closing their eyes and comforting themselves with their
own morality - instead of making a difference.  Often, people who
demand ethics in public are chastised for their audacity.  I know,
being confronted with demands made by others can be uncomfortable
and is rejected violently by many people.  I firmly believe that
this society can not survive if everybody thinks (s)he can always
do as (s)he pleases.

--

> I think you should not feel any pangs of conscience by writting
> a good software.

I don't.  My conscience becomes important when I think about what
else I could have done with the time I spent writing software in a
moral-free space.

--

> project is the wrong place to try to spread that message.

Try as I might, I simply can not understand the logic behind this
statement.  How can a place that is appropriate for exchanging cat
pictures - although it has nothing to do with the scope of fvwm, -
be inappropriate for talking about life and death?

--

> I feel I have no choice but to not install software with a
> political message.

Please do not blame that lack of choice on me.  One always has the
choices one chooses.  If I had to step on the toes of one million
people to save a single human life (*any* human life), I would do
it withouth thinking twice and not feel guilty afterwards,
although I would be sad about any dissent it brought.

--

Some people introduced the terms 'good' and 'evil' into the
discussion.

I find the notion of good and evil not only ridiculous, but I
think it is a dangerous simplification of reality.  Armed
conflicts and wars all over the world show it clearly.  Many
madmen claim to fight 'holy missions' for 'good' using it as an
excuse to commit deeds considered 'evil' by many others.  And they
never even notice when their 'enemies' claim exactly the same for
themselves, with the same rights, or rather the same lack of.

No, the ethics I demand are not brought upon people by judgement
of someone else.  They can be reached by convention only, by
spreading the idea.

--

> Please let's stop that discussion. Please let's start again. I
> know we can do that. Forgiving can be painful, but it makes
> stronger.

Sorry, I do not want to hurt anybody, but I can not do this yet.

--

Finally, it has been noted by several people that making political
(I still think ethical is the right term) statements in this place
will not make any difference.  I have to disagree, and I think the
events of the last week prove it.  But surely, it is not the best
place to fight for peace either.

--

I wish I could make the right decision now, but the turmoil inside
me is too great at the moment.  As I said before, the silence has
to end.  I will abstain from the list for a week, hoping to reach
a decision by then.  I expect that this list returns to the normal
routine until then.

Bye

Dominik ^_^  ^_^

P.S.:  I Noticed that I sometimes wrote the birthday was on 1st of
June and sometimes 1st of July.  I'm not sure which one is correct.
Someone should check this (fvwm was first released as part of
rxvt-0.5.something, I think).

 --
Dominik Vogt, [email-masked]
Reply-To: [email-masked]
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---

From: Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 13:21:07 +0200

> I hope this is reasonable. Please agree.

Okay, I accept this (but I do not agree) given that someone else
takes care of the work it entails (sending a mail to the fvwm
list, collecting the names and packaging the releases).  I don't
promise anything about my participation in this project for the
future, though.

Bye

Dominik ^_^  ^_^