is free, open source software ethical?

A long time ago, sometime in the 70s I believe, a friend of mine used
to work for RCA.  Right at that time Japan was expanding its
electronics market in the Pacific and the Japanese were capturing the
market from RCA by selling below cost.  My friend bitterly condemned
these practices as unethical.

This practice, called 'dumping', is generally condemned, and can often
be prosecuted under law.  It has been used and criticised as such on
several occasions e.g. w.r.t. the dumping of subsidised EC surplus
produce on poor African nations, on Rockeller's ruthless expansion of
Standard Oil by undercutting.

In the defence of open source software, Richard Stallman was willing
to condemn closed source software as unethical.  Now here is a
thought.  Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
subsidy?

To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition.  Imagine if
someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor, thus putting out of business
a struggling company trying to sell their own version.  Would this be
ethical?  Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?

This is posed as an open question, and a fairly important one (hence
the cross post).  You should not assume that I'm against free/open
source from my posing this question, although I'm willing to 'play
black' (attack OS/free) in this thread if the responses are too one
sided.

Mark Tarver
www.lambdassociates.org

[I'm not sure where this discussion belongs, so I don't know where to set
followups. A philosophy group, maybe?]

Mark Tarver said:

<snip>

> In the defence of open source software, Richard Stallman was willing
> to condemn closed source software as unethical.  Now here is a
> thought.  Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
> supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
> subsidy?

The world does not owe software company shareholders a living. If software
houses can't produce software that is sufficiently superior to free
software to justify the price they charge, then they don't really deserve
to succeed. After all, they have far more resources than a typical Open
Source developer.

> To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition.  Imagine if
> someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
> produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor, thus putting out of business
> a struggling company trying to sell their own version.  Would this be
> ethical?

If I give a starving child a meal, am I unethically depriving Macdonald's
of business?

If, somehow, I manage to acquire the resources to give a million starving
children a meal each, am I /now/ unethically depriving Macdonald's of
business?

> Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?

I don't see why. What you call "dumping" was a medium term strategy for
profit maximisation. Open Source is generally a "goodness of their hearts"
phenomenon. People give their software away because they want other people
to be able to share it. They don't do it to make a profit. (Or at least,
if they do, they need to have a think about their pricing!)

--
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

On 4 Mar, 18:46, "j.oke" <java....@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4 Mar, 19:34, Mark Tarver <dr.mtar...@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> 
>
> (...could we please rename this group in 'Philosophical Hypotheses and
> Incidental Spamming Group', as the 'Practical Common Lisp Questions'
> here are going down every moment coming...)
>
> If you agree, please stay quiet, many "thank you"'s!!
>
> -JO

Actually, the first time I heard this question in raised in public was
at the International Lisp Conference 2002 where the speaker delivered
an address on this very question.   He got me thinking. I remember who
this person was, but out of courtesy, I leave him out of it here.

Regarding this 'troll' nonsense, it is up to people to decide (a)
whether and (b) how to respond. This is *their* responsibility and not
that of the OP and it isn't for you to tell people what to do.
'Troll' is too often being used now as a term to silence people from
raising questions or defending positions which might be
controversial.   I'm not going to take responsibility for maladjusted,
irrational and  responses to a rational question.

The guy who spoke thought that programming forums were not just narrow
technical ghettos for asking g questions, but also forums where we
could discuss the important social aspects of what we do and I agree
with him.  This is a social aspect of programming.

Like my old man said about people who wanted to censor nudity on TV.
If you don't like it - change channel and be upset somewhere else.

Mark
www.lambdassociates.org

In article <QK-dnWj3R9L6BlDanZ2dnUVZ8vKdnZ2d@bt.com>,
Richard Heathfield <rjh@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
 
>
> I don't see why. What you call "dumping" was a medium term strategy for
> profit maximisation. Open Source is generally a "goodness of their hearts"
> phenomenon. People give their software away because they want other people
> to be able to share it. They don't do it to make a profit. (Or at least,
> if they do, they need to have a think about their pricing!)

Not that I really want to fan these off-topic flames, but this is just
factually incorrect.  People generally do not write open-source software
out of altruism.  They do it because they are hoping for some form of
compensation, like the ability to use other people's open-source
software, professional recognition and respect, or monetary compensation
in the form of employment, contracts, or investments in some commercial
venture.  Whether this motivation is wise or ethical is a separate
question, but the fact is that most open-source developers do have a
profit motive, even if only indirectly.

rg

On 4 Mar, 20:18, Mark Tarver <dr.mtar...@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> Actually, the first time I heard this question...

So, to justify your philosophical hypothesis, you're just raising
another one?

(No surprise on my side, though...)

-JO

Mark Tarver <dr.mtarver@ukonline.co.uk> writes:
> The guy who spoke thought that programming forums were not just narrow
> technical ghettos for asking g questions, but also forums where we
> could discuss the important social aspects of what we do and I agree
> with him.  This is a social aspect of programming.

Programming in general: maybe, though dubious.  The specific subfields
of functional programming or Lisp: no I don't think so.

> If you don't like it - change channel and be upset somewhere else.

Spoken like a spammer as well as a troll.

Could you please at minimum take cll and clf out of your newsgroup
list.  Well, clf anyway.

Ron Garret said:
>  Richard Heathfield wrote:
> 
>
> Not that I really want to fan these off-topic flames, but this is just
> factually incorrect.  People generally do not write open-source software
> out of altruism.

Well, some do. I will cheerfully accept that not all do.

<snip>

--
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

Mark Tarver said:

<snip>

> Like my old man said about people who wanted to censor nudity on TV.
> If you don't like it - change channel and be upset somewhere else.

That response, more than anything, convinces me that this discussion is
rapidly heading nowhere useful.

There is a big difference between "we would rather you didn't talk about X"
and "we would rather you didn't talk about X *here*".

If you think that the division of Usenet into topic groups constitutes
censorship, then you don't want to waste time here - there's bound to be a
government conspiracy or two that you could be unmasking instead, or
perhaps you could be thinking up ideas for perpetual motion machines.

--
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

On Mar 4, 10:34=A0am, Mark Tarver <dr.mtar...@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> A long time ago, sometime in the 70s I believe, a friend of mine used
> to work for RCA. =A0Right at that time Japan was expanding its
> electronics market in the Pacific and the Japanese were capturing the
> market from RCA by selling below cost. =A0My friend bitterly condemned
> these practices as unethical.
>
> This practice, called 'dumping', is generally condemned, and can often
> be prosecuted under law. =A0It has been used and criticised as such on
> several occasions e.g. w.r.t. the dumping of subsidised EC surplus
> produce on poor African nations, on Rockeller's ruthless expansion of
> Standard Oil by undercutting.
>
> In the defence of open source software, Richard Stallman was willing
> to condemn closed source software as unethical. =A0Now here is a
> thought. =A0Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
> supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
> subsidy?
>
> To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition. =A0Imagine if
> someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
> produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor, thus putting out of business
> a struggling company trying to sell their own version. =A0Would this be
> ethical? =A0Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?
>
> This is posed as an open question, and a fairly important one (hence
> the cross post). =A0You should not assume that I'm against free/open
> source from my posing this question, although I'm willing to 'play
> black' (attack OS/free) in this thread if the responses are too one
> sided.
>
> Mark Tarverwww.lambdassociates.org

Can I make a guitar and then give it away?

How about ten guitars? 100, 1000?

As I see it, if I want to spend my own money and resources making
guitars and giving them away, it is my own business and there is
nothing wrong with it, even though some guitar companies might not
like it.

On the other hand, I do see one small exploitation.  Sometimes, a mess
of college kids throw themselves into creating these free tools,
because 'Hey -- stick it to the man!'.  And then someone else bundles
them up and puts them on a CD (Let's call it "GreenHat") and sells it
for $170 {the kids get nothing, and they did a large fraction of the
work}.  Oh, wait, they don't sell the CD -- that's a violation of GPL
-- they sell a service contract.  Anyway, the odd man out I see in
this picture is those kids who were more or less tricked into working
for nothing.  Now, lots of them do go into it with both eyes open but
some of them are fooled also.

At any rate, I see open source software as generally a good thing, but
I also think it should be a choice.  I do think that algorithms are a
form of mathematics and should be public domain like mathematics
itself (which cannot be patented) but that is neither here nor there.
Of course, I would obey even those laws that I disagree with, because
society has chosen them.

So here is the ideal situation that I would like to see:

1.  Lots of software licenses from commercial, totally closed to
public domain and everything in between.
2.  Lots of innovation shared by projects like those hosted at
sourceforge.
3.  Lots of excellent research like that which is hosted at
universities around the world and then made available on Citeseer (I
*Hate* those 'pay $25 for this article' places -- but I also recognize
their right to do that)
4.  Oh, and no software patents.

I have been involved in just about every sort of open source and
closed source project that there is.  I have done GPL, LGPL, BSD,
Public Domain, etc. as well as commercial software.  I have no
problems with any of it.

On Mar 4, 1:00=A0pm, Richard Heathfield <r...@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> [I'm not sure where this discussion belongs, so I don't know where to set
> followups. A philosophy group, maybe?]
>
> Mark Tarver said:
>
> <snip>
> 
>
> The world does not owe software company shareholders a living. If software=[/color
]

> houses can't produce software that is sufficiently superior to free
> software to justify the price they charge, then they don't really deserve
> to succeed.

Do you feel the same way about Microsoft v. Netscape?  Are you against
antitrust legislation altogether?  After all, the world does not owe
anybody the right to make a living in any business.  If a monopoly
squeezes them out by giving away product or undercutting them, too bad
for them.