--- Sean Witham <sean.witham@webscreen-technology.com>
wrote:
> In business profit is the be all and end all. Where
> as in society 
> such things as Health, Knowledge, Recreation,
> Procreation and 
> "Freedom" (what ever that is) are ends in their own
> right. Corporate 
> profit can often come into ethical conflict with the
> goals of 
> society, corporates certainly do need their
> "Freedom" restricted so 
> that their Goals DO NOT impinge on the goals of
> Society.

See, this is the big debate. It's easy to say that
business is only out for profit and that's why they do
bad things. But I'd like to propose an alternate
scenario. Business is indeed out for profit, and
sometimes this forces them to do good deeds (and this
seems off topic, but it's part of the reason why I'm
such a fan of the BSD license). In the long term,
businesses will find that it's not OK to pollute, kill
customers, etc. It's not good long term business.
Businesses will be compelled by long term goals to
support their community as best they can (and
hopefully donating code back to the cause when they
sell BSD code). Customers will notice this after time.

Now, this is the theory anyway. It's too bad that
consumers don't care. They just want the lowest price.
Which forces business back into the practices they are
best known for (but really are forced upon them for
their own survival by the customer): profit; community
be damned.

So who's really to blame?

Andy

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