From the FSF "As our society grows more dependent on computers, the software we run is of critical importance to securing the future of a free society. Free software is about having control over the technology we use in our homes, schools and businesses, where computers work for our individual and communal benefit, not for proprietary software companies or governments who might seek to restrict and monitor us." A statement laced with moral reasoning. The whole 'about' page is a full of fallacies, no least appeal to emotion. Not for one minute do I with the FSF's raison d'être, I hasten to add, merely I use it point out how utterly poorly that logic is applied in these discussions.
"The cost to all computing simply isn't worth the tiny perceived benefit to a very few" So morally it's wrong. That pragmatism comes from the moral imperative or the perceived masses.
"...it is the very practical lesson that people don't want it." Why? Because it affects their perceived freedoms, ergo moral reasoning.
To glibly dismiss the moral imperative of F/LOSS simply wrong. Heck, Stallman, the EFF and the FSF rely heavily on argumentum ad consequentiam, argumentum ad metum and argumentum ad passiones in a not-insignificant amount of their literature and all of those to varing extent rely on moralising.
You seem to use a very loose definition of "moral." I don't see any morality inherent in logical statements of the form A->B, B is widely undesirable, therefore A is widely undesirable. If that's a moral argument, then by your definition, there's no such thing as pragmatism or logic.
> I don't see any morality inherent in logical statements of the form A->B, B is widely undesirable, therefore A is widely undesirable.
The moral (or, at least, subjective; whether the particular subjective distinction is "moral" or something else is somewhat of a an arbitrary distinction) part is "B is widely undesirable". Desirability is not a factual premise.
> If that's a moral argument, then by your definition, there's no such thing as pragmatism or logic.
Well, no; that is a moral argument (or at least, an argument that rests on a subjective premise), and it is also an application of logic. Logic doesn't provide premises, it applies based on premises which are either sensory observations (which are inherently subjective) or a priori postulates (which are often subjective moral/aesthetic/etc. value propositions.)
Logic exists, it just doesn't get you to any kind of conclusions about the way things should be or what things you should do without starting with premises that are about the way things should be or what you should do.
"The cost to all computing simply isn't worth the tiny perceived benefit to a very few" So morally it's wrong. That pragmatism comes from the moral imperative or the perceived masses.
"...it is the very practical lesson that people don't want it." Why? Because it affects their perceived freedoms, ergo moral reasoning.
To glibly dismiss the moral imperative of F/LOSS simply wrong. Heck, Stallman, the EFF and the FSF rely heavily on argumentum ad consequentiam, argumentum ad metum and argumentum ad passiones in a not-insignificant amount of their literature and all of those to varing extent rely on moralising.