is free, open source software ethical?

In article <XfOdnW0X0NjfqVPanZ2dnUVZ8tPinZ2d@bt.com>,
Richard Heathfield <rjh@see.sig.invalid> wrote:

> Ron Garret said:
> 
>
> Similarly, mothers don't /really/ love their children. It's all to do with
> DNA. And when people risk their lives diving into rivers to save complete
> strangers, what they're really after is the Hero Badge.
>
> Yeah, right.

You're not nearly as far off the mark as you are trying to be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene

rg

Mark Tarver said:

<snip>

> The argument against FOSS as presented does not essentially depend
> on whether your dollars come from Uncle Sam or Uncle Ebenezer.  The
> argument is that by releasing software whose price (= zero) does not
> reflect the costs of development, you price competitors out of the
> market whose pockets cannot afford to compete at this level.  The
> question is 'Is this ethical?'  Has nothing at all to do with where
> your money comes from.

If some friends come around to my house and I offer them coffee (without
charging them), is that ethical? After all, I'm undercutting the cafe.

> 2. Rightness is judged by intention; not by consequences.
>
> Fine; your primary intention is good (free software and smiling faces)
> - *but* if it can be shown that the secondary effects of your action
> are evil ('Small Faces Software' goes bust) and if it can be shown
> that these effects were forseeable then you might be held responsible
> for these evil consequences.

Silly argument. Everything we do has "evil" consequences. People eat, so
cows die (or carrots die). People drive cars, so the atmosphere gets
polluted. People eat chocolate, so slavery flourishes in the Third World.
If you want to set the world to rights, I suggest you put the energy into
anti-slavery campaigns such as http://www.stopthetraffik.org instead.

<snip>

> FOSS makes no discrimination about who it affects.  It is a
> fuel-air bomb in relation to the market.

If you want to make money, produce a good or service that people *want* to
buy. Nobody is obliged to buy that good or service. If you choose to
bottle and sell air, you can - but nobody's going to buy it (even though
it's vital to survival) because they can already get it for free. To sell
it, you're going to have to add some value. (People *do* manage to sell
water, even though it falls out of the sky and people can catch as much as
they like for free.)

> Anecdotal evidence; the main apriori argument is that people will
> rather choose to grab what is free rather than pay money for an
> equivalent product;
> and this seems fairly obvious.

Actually, businesses do tend to go for Big Blue (or nowadays, Big Grey),
despite the existence of free alternatives. I'm not sure why. (They
normally say it's for support reasons, but I'm not convinced.)

> I've seen the effects on student enrollment in 2002;
> people walking away from CS because its not perceived
> as a good career move.

Fine by me. There are too many programmers anyway - and a goodly number of
them aren't really terribly good. A little Darwinism will benefit the
industry.

> One student told me so right to my face.  I didn't argue with him either.

Those who choose programming as a career choice rather than because they
love to write programs are unlikely to make particularly good programmers.
Many of them don't even know how to delimit sig blocks in Usenet articles
(hint hint).

--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. +rjh@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999

Ron Garret said:

> In article <XfOdnW0X0NjfqVPanZ2dnUVZ8tPinZ2d@bt.com>,
>  Richard Heathfield <rjh@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> 
>
> You're not nearly as far off the mark as you are trying to be.

Oh, I can't agree with that! :-)

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene

I read that book about 15 years ago (assuming that the wiki article does
indeed describe "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins - you can never tell
with wiki). I thought it was nonsense then, and I think it's nonsense now.
(It was, in fact, that book that persuaded me, much to my astonishment,
that my stance on the whole Evolution vs Creation debate thing was
completely wrong.)

But whether you agree with me or not on that issue, the denial of altruism
is merely a consequence of inappropriate reductionism. Whether people are
altruistic because "God made them that way" or because it's an emergent
species survival trait in a universe sans point, the fact remains that
people /do/ (on occasion) behave altruistically. To pretend otherwise is
just silly.

--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. +rjh@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999

Ron Garret <rNOSPAMon@flownet.com> writes:

> In article <XfOdnW0X0NjfqVPanZ2dnUVZ8tPinZ2d@bt.com>,
>  Richard Heathfield <rjh@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> 
>
> You're not nearly as far off the mark as you are trying to be.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene

And certainly nowhere near as wide of the mark as Dawkins!  Altrusim is a
major problem for the socio-biologists.

atb


Glyn

On 5 mar, 09:30, Glyn Millington <wistansw...@linuxmail.org> wrote:
> Ron Garret <rNOSPA...@flownet.com> writes: 
> 
> 
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> 
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> 
> 
> 
>
> And certainly nowhere near as wide of the mark as Dawkins! =A0Altrusim is =[/color
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a
> major problem for the socio-biologists.
>
> atb
>
> Glyn- Masquer le texte des messages pr=E9c=E9dents -
>
> - Afficher le texte des messages pr=E9c=E9dents -

Hi all,

I read with attention this topic, and I think the regressions in
computer sciences are in the "good" way.

Why : Free or Open source =3D just free of charge with two
possibility :
1=B0 software relatively good : create by major community of IBM, SUN,
Novell (thanks Microsoft to save Novell !) salary !!! it's a pure
dumping approach against Microsoft but in fact against a lot of small
Editors and profit directly to offshore.
2=B0 software comes from "real" community and generally quality is not
very good, bad documentation, etc...

Just compare Lispworks or Allegro to SBCL.
Before make the "gloria of Open Source, just ask yourself about
innovation brings by SBCL for LISP in terms of technology. It's
simple : ZERO !

SBCL is certainly a good job, but I prefer pay for Lispworks or
Allegro CL to substain innovation same as AllegroCache.

And to finish if "Altruism" is just a word to justify a dumping
approach : OK But Chinese or Indian Compagny are not in the "Altruism"
way. But thanks to Free, offshore compagny can recover technology,
break the cost and in final IBM recruits more in India than USA.

But : OK : you are free  ...  to work in China for 100$ per month

Best Regards,

Christophe

Christophe skrev:
>
> Why : Free or Open source = just free of charge with two
> possibility :
> 1° software relatively good : create by major community of IBM, SUN,
> Novell (thanks Microsoft to save Novell !) salary !!! it's a pure
> dumping approach against Microsoft but in fact against a lot of small
> Editors and profit directly to offshore.
> 2° software comes from "real" community and generally quality is not
> very good, bad documentation, etc...
>
> Just compare Lispworks or Allegro to SBCL.
> Before make the "gloria of Open Source, just ask yourself about
> innovation brings by SBCL for LISP in terms of technology. It's
> simple : ZERO !

There's a third possibility:

Company C released Programming language P as Open Source, and I
do believe it's fair to say that it brought some innovation to
the market. The reason was not to compete with vendors of
programming languages or tools, but rather the opposite. C is
not in the business of selling programming languages, but rather
to use them. But it turns out that C couldn't buy anything remotely
like P on the open market. This leaves C with the choice of either

(a) settling for an inferior tool, which they can pay for
(b) continuing with their own tool, carrying all the cost themselves
(c) releasing it for free, hoping that others will use it and
give feedback, perhaps bug fixes, and even forming a user
community that could act as a recruitment base.

There is never a guarantee that (c) will work, but the alternative most
likely would have been to simply discard the innovative tool, hoping
that commercial programming language vendors will eventually come
up with something equally good.

This is essentially the Gilette principle: "give away the razor
and sell the blades". C makes money selling products built using
P - not on P itself. Increasing the spread of P by giving it
away makes perfect business sense, as long as it works. If it
doesn't, (c) degrades to (b) or (a).

There is actually a (d) too: Give or sell P to a tool vendor
interested in selling it for profit. Many large companies are
likely to try this before trying (c). I don't know how often it
works out, but I guess it's been known to happen.

(Any similarities between C and Ericsson, and P and Erlang are
purely coincidental).


BR,
Ulf W

On 5 mar, 10:47, Ulf Wiger <ulf.wi...@e-r-i-c-s-s-o-n.com> wrote:
> Christophe skrev:
>
>
> 
> 
>
> There's a third possibility:
>
> Company C released Programming language P as Open Source, and I
> do believe it's fair to say that it brought some innovation to
> the market. The reason was not to compete with vendors of
> programming languages or tools, but rather the opposite. C is
> not in the business of selling programming languages, but rather
> to use them. But it turns out that C couldn't buy anything remotely
> like P on the open market. This leaves C with the choice of either
>
> (a) settling for an inferior tool, which they can pay for
> (b) continuing with their own tool, carrying all the cost themselves
> (c) releasing it for free, hoping that others will use it and
> =A0 =A0 =A0give feedback, perhaps bug fixes, and even forming a user
> =A0 =A0 =A0community that could act as a recruitment base.
>
> There is never a guarantee that (c) will work, but the alternative most
> likely would have been to simply discard the innovative tool, hoping
> that commercial programming language vendors will eventually come
> up with something equally good.
>
> This is essentially the Gilette principle: "give away the razor
> and sell the blades". C makes money selling products built using
> P - not on P itself. Increasing the spread of P by giving it
> away makes perfect business sense, as long as it works. If it
> doesn't, (c) degrades to (b) or (a).
>
> There is actually a (d) too: Give or sell P to a tool vendor
> interested in selling it for profit. Many large companies are
> likely to try this before trying (c). I don't know how often it
> works out, but I guess it's been known to happen.
>
> (Any similarities between C and Ericsson, and P and Erlang are
> purely coincidental).
>
> BR,
> Ulf W

Hi all,

Ok, it's a point of view, but as a customer I have the choice to use
Erlang with European or USA developers but also with China
developers ... And for the same price I have significatively more
resources.

China can say "thanks Ericsson" too, I am agree with you.

Best Regards

user923005 <dcorbit@connx.com> writes:
> Oh, wait, they don't sell the CD -- that's a violation of GPL
> -- they sell a service contract.

No, you've got this completely wrong. I don't understand
why, it is easy to find official position on the GNU website

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

Other people, with no interest in copyright or technology
manage to grasp this point. See

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/faq.html#gnu

They have their own, different, position

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/....html#freebooks

which I quote:

But there is another, deeper reason to think twice about
selling Dhamma books. Since the Buddha's time, the
teachings have traditionally been given away free of
charge, passing freely from teacher to student, from
friend to friend. The teachings are regarded as
priceless, and have been conveyed to us across the
centuries by an unbroken stream of generosity --- the
very foundation of all the Buddha's teachings. That
tradition continues with the production of free Dhamma
books. From the author, the stream flows onwards through
those who give their time to editing, typesetting, and
printing the book; through the donors who sponsor the
printing; and through those who take care of
distribution and mailing. If you are fortunate enough to
receive a book borne on this stream of generosity, you
learn an important lesson of Dhamma long before you even
open the cover. The instant someone puts a price tag on
a Dhamma book, you not only have to pay money for it,
but you get a little bit less in return: you get a book
that is merely about Dhamma, instead of one that is
itself an example of Dhamma in action. Which one do you
think has greater value?

They do not place their translations under a GPL style
licence because they are philosophically opposed to their
sale. Now that you have seen a real life example of people
with a philosophical commitment to free=gratis rejecting GPL
licencing of their own work, because it permits sale, you
are in a better position to understand the GPL.

GPL forbids unbundling the rights. Sell all or none, the
choice is yours, but don't try to divide society into
Digital Lords, with the full bundle of rights, and Digital
Peasants, with only usage rights.

Alan Crowe
Edinburgh
Scotland

On 2008-03-04, Kaz Kylheku <kkylheku@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mar 4, 10:34_am, Mark Tarver <dr.mtar...@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> If the univerity is funded by government money, well, that is theft.
>
> Once we can can assign an unethical attribute the root node of an
> economic tree, there is no point in evaluating the ethics of the child
> nodes; the unethical property flows out from that root toward the
> leaves. Stolen money taints all derived transactions.

Interesting theory, but why limit it to money and other resources that
were stolen recently? For example, if a government (or an independant
conqueror) steals a vast quantity of land, gold, oil, and other valuable
natural resources through warfare (as various European countries did all
over the world starting with Columbus, and as the USA did in the 19th
Century and continues to do today), and then gives it to certain members
of its population, then isn't all the profit made from that theft, and the
profit made by reinvesting those profits, and the profits made by those
who inherited those profits in following generations, isn't all of it
ultimately derived from theft? That would place your root node in a place
that marks virtually all wealth in the "first world" countries as
stolen.

--
Microsoft Windows. Flaky and built to stay that way.

Christophe <christophe.allegrini@birdtechnology.net> writes:
>
> Just compare Lispworks or Allegro to SBCL.
> Before make the "gloria of Open Source, just ask yourself about
> innovation brings by SBCL for LISP in terms of technology. It's
> simple : ZERO !

If you want SBCL to be innovative, then (drumroll please) innovate, and
add it to SBCL.  There's no reason for free software not to be
innovative, save that most people don't want to innovate.

--
Robert Uhl <http://public.xdi.org/=ruhl>
When you need a helpline for breakfast cereals, it's time to start
thinking about tearing down civilisation and giving the ants a go.
--Chris King