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Comment by atonse | Hacker News Reader

That's the problem with all this stuff seeming black and white, "who see no ethical concerns with proprietary software" – isn't that quite a blanket statement? some proprietary software or all proprietary software? What's the blanket ethical concern?

Just like I don't need to see the exact farm where my tomatoes came from, or which mine the metal came from for my car engine, I don't need to see every single line of code for my Netflix player.

Seriously, where's the ethical concern there?

Where do you draw the line from "I don't trust anyone, I need to verify everything", to "I trust them enough to not worry too much", to "I don't care"?

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You're only proving my point. The only thing you can think of is access to the source code. That has never been the main concern of free software. It's a necessary precondition of needing the preferred form of work in order to properly exercise freedoms 1 and 3.

Not that your analogy is even correct. An end product like metal would be more like a circuit, not amenable to modification in of itself. The Netflix player is general-purpose software running on your property which you are forbidden from studying, using for any purpose, modifying or redistributing. The ethical concerns are enormous and no metaphor to physical objects is applicable when the stakes are so different.

No, there are no ethical concerns whatsoever here. If you don't want software you can't tinker with, then don't use Netflix. If Netflix were required by every citizen, then there would be ethical concerns. You are NOT required to use any proprietary software. This is the exact extremism that I'm talking about, where you feel I should have a problem with this even though my opinion doesn't affect your choices at all. It's the same logic as religion, who feels I shouldn't be allowed to marry someone of the same sex even though it doesn't affect them in any way. It's extremism, and it's quite frankly ignorant.

And again. You're talking about tinkering. What about the freedom to run for any purpose? What about the fact that one is renting a proprietary service with a de facto universal backdoor and spyware capabilities? How is that not an ethical concern?

Voluntary association does tend to work in this case, but it doesn't change the fact that a party is engaging in unethical behavior. Furthermore, the ultimate end result of "Don't like it, don't use it" is the erosion of choice.

You are NOT required to use any proprietary software.

Oh, hell yes, you are. Government agencies, who have a duty to serve the public, run proprietary software all the time. Meaning they are deprived of computational sovereignty and cannot guarantee they are performing their duties unfettered. If you've been to public school in most countries, you are taught to use proprietary software in IT classes. An institution devoted to learning compels students to use software that explicitly forbids being learned from and studied. Even more harmful are proprietary formats, which are like a lock and time bomb on your data, yet are ubiquitous.

Network services are a big ethical dilemma of their own and yet practically unavoidable.

Software is essential to contemporary civilization, and you will be using lots of proprietary programs. You cannot reasonably expect people to become hermits over it.

It's the same logic as religion, who feels I shouldn't be allowed to marry someone of the same sex even though it doesn't affect them in any way.

What a load of nonsense. It is the proprietary software vendor who deprives users of freedom. Your analogy is backwards and completely inappropriate. Free software mandates you have the freedom to run the program for any purpose, so gay marriage would be unrestricted. Proprietary vendors would have terms that may or may not restrict it.

I applaud you taking the time to respond carefully like this. It's always nice to be reminded of the simple, yet powerful foundation at the heart of Free software: the four freedoms:

The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).

The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).

The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

Note that "access to the source code" is not one of the four freedoms -- it's merely a precondition to be able to satisfy them.

ed: It might be interesting to note, that most of these freedoms exist for physical objects: you are generally allowed to fix broken physical things, even those that are under patent protection. Or to make sure stuff fits where you need it. And you generally can sell/give away stuff you're not using. These rights are actually protected by law.

Free software could be viewed as a rather conservative measure towards ensuring that we get these "everyday" rights wrt software as well.

Actually, it's exactly the first freedom the one missing from physical objects. You are free to analyze Coke with a microscope, but you won't get the recipe. You are free to 3D-scan a fork and analyze its alloy, but you won't be given the original CAD project and the production plans for the material.

I'm not sure if you were implying that the 4F are replicating what happens with physical objects; I would disagree with this. The 4F expect from software much more than we expect from any other good or service we buy/rent/consume.

Ah, but there are multiple levels: You can take chair apart, or split your pants along the seams -- and if you can find a material with comparable strength, or a fabric you like -- you are free to make as many "copies" as you want.

You are free to attach a metal head to a shaft and call it a hammer, and look at other hammers for inspiration, if your hammer doesn't work quite right.

You are of course right that it only goes so far -- and this is perhaps most scary in the field of bioengineering -- with the possibility of a) sterile produce (you wouldn't be able to plant a potato any more), and b) patented/"copyrighted" gene sequences -- making it illegal to plant certain "proprietary" produce without a license grant.

I do agree that the analogy is flawed -- is the shape of a fork more like the api or the source code? I suppose the main difference is that many useful physical things are trivial conceptually (once you've had/seen the idea).

I'm talking about tinkering because that was the example I was responding to. I think your lack of logic in this thread is unethical. Saying so doesn't make it true though, does it? Actually, nothing you said is logical. You don't have to take a windows programming course, you can choose the many more nix based courses. Those are choices, along with my choice to use proprietary or open licences. You want to remove my ability to make that choice. Foss should exist, and so should proprietary. Anyone dictating that only one or the other should exist is an extremist.

Your arguments are framed as if to make them valid, but they are still fallacies. The MIT licence exists for a reason, and the reason it's the most commonly used. It's the non-extremist licence.

Anyway, I'm done. Arguing with extremists is a fools errand. I believe there is a place for all models.

Insisting people pass on the freedoms that they benefited from to other users, is not extremism. You have a chip on your shoulder.

You say that copyleft removes your freedom to choose to distribute a program as proprietary software. This is correct, but you portray it highly disingenuously, like it's an equally weighted choice.

Generally, freedom has the most influence when its recipients are those at a lower position of power. The power of the software vendor is to have full control over the usage of the program, ostensibly either to provide a better UX (which is dubious), to exercise their IP (an ethical landmine), to benefit from unsustainable per-unit business models that ignore software's intrinsically anti-rivalrous, non-scarce and intangible nature, or other reasons.

Let us see how the user is affected. And keep in mind, all programmers are users. Programmers will be using other people's software at dramatically higher quantities than they will ever write anything individually. As such, user freedom is of paramount importance to them.

Now, for a certain amount of convenience on part of the vendor, the user is put in a position where they cannot a) run the program for all purposes that they may desire to use it, b) study and change it to adjust it to their needs, c) share it with friends, neighbors and acquaintances and d) enrich their community by sharing modified copies. In other words, they get software without most of the benefits that actually comes with having things be software in the first place.

As such, the users lose individual and collective control for the benefit of the vendor, but at a deadweight loss for everyone else. Because, when the software leaves the vendor into another person's machine, how it's used is in no natural sense of any interest to them. Not anymore than a chef is interested in how other people use their recipe. This has been accepted as the first-sale doctrine by courts across the world.

I therefore conclude that user freedom should be given at all times where the software is user-facing.

MIT

It solves your problems, and mine. Middle ground. Compromise.

What is wrong with MIT?

You can take something like LLVM, add a backend for a new processor or a new programming language and never release it back to the LLVM developers.

Thus getting for free the work invested into LLVM, being able to sell the modified version and LLVM developer don't see a dime from it.

You mean to say that the original developer who chose to release via MIT, gets exactly what they agreed to? God forbid, you're right, it's a whole moral catastrophe.

Many choose a given license without understanding its full consequences.

This is textbook nanny state drivel. You don't need to protect people from themselves. There are thousands of articles online, people can do the research. You aren't publishing anything without access to the internet, and the internet has more than enough articles and even wizards to help you choose.

I guess that those posts I see about someone "steeling" their code is a mirage then.

No, those are absolutely real. It's not up to you to protect or stop it. It's a life lesson. It's the same as copyright. Every kid starts some project using someone else's IP. We see it daily. Then someone explains that you can't use Homer Simpson in your app. You don't abolish copyright because some kid gets a C&D.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10180209 As an example.

Here's a link to one person's answer: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.en.html

The person to whom you replied seems to quite literally be talking about "people who see no ethical concerns with proprietary software" as such. Some people do.

You want to know why they do? There are many resources available online that you can use to read up on why they do. If after reading them you still don't need to see every line of code on your Netflix player, you will still be disingenuous if you pose "problems with proprietary software as such" as some kind of ending of a reductio ad absurdum. Disagreement is fine; you don't need to be confused by it.

I see a ethical problem with people who would sue a fellow human being because they cared to share a piece of unmodified software which was useful.

I also find people unethical who would go out and punish or actively prevent a fellow human being who seek to understand software which is currently running on a machine that they own.

I also admier people who fixes broken software on their own machines and then goes to share the improvements. I find ethical concerns when people try to prevent those improvements from being run or being shared.

Those proprietary software which isn't covered by the above concerns are unlikely to be ethical concerns to me, but what is then the definition of proprietary software?

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