The world is not a black and white place, that is for sure. There is little that is simple in it. If you want to do good in the world, sometimes it might be beneficial to be a little less good for a while. Google’s actions in China could be such a case. A few years ago, they made a deal with the Chinese government that they would remove links to websites that the Chinese government has blocked. In exchange, Google could run their operations within China. This is obvious not a good thing, and many argue (me included) that this violated Google’s motto, Don’t Be Evil. Now they say they will again show the blocked links, and are threatening to pull out of China altogether. So it seems that their early deal with the devil perhaps has given them more leverage to bring attention to the actions of China. So that could be using a bad, but perhaps not evil, action to affect a greater change. On the other hand, it could just be that Google’s business isn’t going well in China and they were going to shut it down anyway, so they might as well cash in on the good PR and potential moral credibility boost. Or something else.

It is interesting to contrast actions like these to the more pure actions of someone like Richard M. Stallman (RMS). If you look at both what he says about Free Software and how strictly he acts upon those works, it is really quite incredible. Outside of Free Software, he may be morally dubious, I just don’t know at all. But looking at Free Software, it looks to me quite clear that RMS has been quite strictly adherent to his words, and we can now see that this has been quite amazingly successful, even against some pretty hefty foes.

Somewhere in all this in a balance. We need the people out there who are unwilling to compromise their morals even a bit to keep the issues clear and the goals focused. Having people who believe in that strict word, yet can contribute one step at a time, can be a net positive effect if said people stay focused on the true goals. Many people use proprietary software while espousing Free Software. As long as the goal remains the ever expansion of Free Software, that’s a net positive. When people settle on the status quo, then the lack of focus results in a lesser or negative result.