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I don't think that is a fair comparison. Is it unethical to clone the printed menu of a restaurant? The set of dishes it offers to its customers? A single dish? If your clone would be used in a competing for profit restaurant, I would answer "yes, it is unethical" in all 3 cases (getting inspired by a dish feels different to me, and can easily be ethical, depending on scale and similarity. Getting inspired by 20 dishes from a single restaurant? Unethical in my book, unless there is a truly tremendous lot of inspiration involved.) The world, however, sees things different for software. For example, you can legally clone the PC BIOS or fonts, as long as you only look at its outside. That is like cloning dishes from a restaurant based only on looking at what they present you when you buy the dish (= without visiting the kitchen, quizzing the cook, or dumpster diving to discover what the ingredients are) But that is legally. For the first, most people would agree it is ethical. For the second, you'll find differing opinions. Now, the open source angle adds a twist that makes my answer "it depends/I wouldn't know". Somehow, cloning, say, a product that isn't for sale anymore or doesn't run on modern hardware, and was produced by a huge company feels more ethical than cloning a $5 product created by a single developer who makes just enough to live from it from that product. In either case, cloning feels more ethical to me if it is done for one's own use, more so the less wealthy the cloner (cloning for own use, AFAIK, is legal around the world. For example, you can create a Rietveld chair for your own home, but not sell it or give it away as a present. The first copy of cloned software that you use for yourself, for me, is in the same boat. I know it doesn't make sense, but the millions of additional copies one can make from that 'for own use' software more or less are collateral damage) |