I mean that literally. As an example see this [0] discussion from a few days ago. Not involving microsoft, but the guy literally gave up millions just because of morals. The principal is the same.
My surprise wasn't at the fact that someone would give up money due to morals; my surprise was at the fact that helping Microsoft (or putting ads in software, in VLC's case) would be considered a moral wrong. That sounds like quite an exaggeration to me. Microsoft has done a lot of good things too, and so have ads. The fact that they have negative aspects doesn't mean anything less than 90 degrees away from their direction is a moral wrong.
In VLC's case, it's a question of trust. The users of VLC trust the developer to not put ads on that software; it's breaking that trust that would be the moral wrong, not necessarily the ads.
I mean that literally. As an example see this [0] discussion from a few days ago. Not involving microsoft, but the guy literally gave up millions just because of morals. The principal is the same.
[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15372048
My surprise wasn't at the fact that someone would give up money due to morals; my surprise was at the fact that helping Microsoft (or putting ads in software, in VLC's case) would be considered a moral wrong. That sounds like quite an exaggeration to me. Microsoft has done a lot of good things too, and so have ads. The fact that they have negative aspects doesn't mean anything less than 90 degrees away from their direction is a moral wrong.
In VLC's case, it's a question of trust. The users of VLC trust the developer to not put ads on that software; it's breaking that trust that would be the moral wrong, not necessarily the ads.
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