[freedomben]

Would be interested in this too. Anecdatally, it seems like Amazon has really picked up among people who don't consider proprietary software to be unethical. G still has a better rep among the FOSS people. Of course my sample size is probably about 30 people, mostly from startups we've worked at together. Hardly representative of the target market for FAANG.

[gwright]

> proprietary software to be unethical

My sense is only a very small percentage (way less than 1%) of software developers think that proprietary software by definition is unethical. Am I wrong to think this?

[Nasrudith]

In a hard sense maybe from selection bias and counting only full time and far fewer who don't pay the rent. Maybe uo to like 5% or so if you can count academia among developers.

There is a sizable chunk who would prefer to work with non-properietary software if only for the ability to take a peak. The likely winner by raw numbers would be the "apathetics" who go wity whatever works.

[gwright]

> In a hard sense ...

What other sense is there? Or more specifically, what makes proprietary software innately unethical? It just seems like you have to radically distort the meaning of "proprietary" or "ethical" to make any sense of the concept and at that point you are just playing with semantics and not communicating clearly.

[pjmlp]

It would be welcomed if those ethics would be used to pay for the tooling as well.

Instead we keep getting posts on HN from companies that either go dual licenses, or completely proprietary to stay on business, or just switch business altogether.

[dunkelheit]

At least now there is growing recognition that there is a problem. Given that opensource simply makes sense for many categories of software, I am hopeful that a solution that is fair to both users and developers will be figured out eventually.

[zozbot234]

Well, it depends what kind of companies. I will happily concede that it's hard to sustain a Bay Area "unicorn" company purely on FLOSS development and support - unless that company happens to be named Red Hat.

[pjmlp]

Unethical is to use software from others, wanting to be paid for work, while not giving back a cent to those developers.

[freedomben]

I agree, which is one reason the FOSS types really don't like Amazon.

[pjmlp]

You mean the same ones that are anti-GPL and are responsible for the uptake of licences that allow companies like Amazon to do exactly what those licenses are for?

[freedomben]

I guess I don't know what you're talking about. I (and the people I'm referring to) are not anti-GPL. We don't use the GPL for everything because not everything needs it and without a doubt it hurts (or prevents) adoption, but we certainly do use it liberally.

[Reelin]

I'm puzzled by your comment. The GPL fails to prevent use of software within a proprietary cloud-based system (as has been the cause of much drama lately). AGPL or a similar license is required for that.

[techslave]

> among people who don't consider proprietary software to be unethical

wouldn’t that be nearly everyone? there are very, very few RMS’s in the world.

[scarmig]

There's plenty of middle ground. Lots of people--the majority, I'd say--treat open source as a positive and seek it out. But they also won't go with an inferior solution just to check the OSS purity box.

[freedomben]

I would agree with this. Personally I've tried to choose companies whose products are fully free/libre, and for the most part have had success with that. I am no RMS, but I have a strong preference for open solutions. Because of that my sample set is certainly biased toward others who at least feel the same.

[techslave]

i think there are very many folks with that stance. that is a very far cry from “unethical”.