[mythtv-users] A new theme on the way...

[Robert McNamara]

On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 1:17 PM, Christopher Meredith
<chmeredith at gmail.com> wrote:
> In the end, you are free to ask people to not modify it, just as I am
> free to ask people not to read my book in artificial light. And for
> the same reasons, everyone is free to disregard these requests without
> any moral or ethical condemnation whatsoever. At bottom, this is a
> question of personal preference and there is nothing unethical about
> having a different preference than someone else.

It seems a clarification is in order here.  I neither intend to take
any action against, nor an I unrealistic enough to believe I can
prevent, modification within one's own home.  What I will express is
that that is my preference that the user not do so, and I would ask
that anyone who does this keep it to themselves.  If you feel strongly
enough about it not to comply with the license, you really ought to
write your own theme.

If we believe in the GPL (and I venture to say I've written many, many
more lines of GPL code than some haranguing me here) then there is an
implicit respect for software licenses as a concept.  If it is
unacceptable to violate the GPL, then by derivation it should be
equally unacceptable to violate the license of proprietary software.
I half-feel that if I were able to encrypt/compress the theme and make
it unusable, and released it under a draconian license, that I would
be better off, as at least it would fit in the black-and-white
perspectives offered here.  It's tougher to pin down, though, as this
is a free product with a license that is not wide open.  Morality is
experienced differently by everyone.  As to my personal perspective,
agreeing explicitly to a license, and then refusing to abide by those
terms is not morally acceptable *to me*.  If I can't live by the terms
of a license, I won't use the product.  I can do no better than to ask
the same of my users.

Robert