Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by akerl_ 1620 days ago
What is unethical about contributing (for free!) to the development of closed-source software?

And if you’ve decided that making open-source software inherently contributes to the development of closed-source software, what’s your recommendation?

If it’s unethical to work on closed-source and open-source, do we all just go home and stop writing code?
2 comments
chrisdutz 1620 days ago
When I started to work on PLC4X I was hoping people would be using it to build commercial applications and either making money with it, saving money or building better products. That's why I stronly believe in the Apache License and am not a GPL advocate.

However I would never have expected that allmost nothing is returned by anyone.

I mean, I'm an IT consultant and I was doing consulting with other projects that I work on and I'm fine with that. I love doing that, I love giving training, mentoring people and companies to become open-source contributors. I saw that the effort-to-improvement-ratio open-source could bring to the automation industry was just incredible 5 years ago. That's why I put so much work into the project and I continue doing so ... just differently ;-)

link
phoronixrly 1620 days ago
We're getting into technicalities here, but in my opinion the ethical thing to do is to share your code freely for everyone else to use, however at the same time use a license that requires them to do the same with any code they derive from yours. This is absolutely nothing new, ref. the GPL.
link
akerl_ 1620 days ago
It’s clear that your preference is that people do that. What’s not clear is why the MIT license and closed source software are unethical.

Not everything we dislike is a violation of ethics.

link
rbanffy 1620 days ago
> What’s not clear is why the MIT license and closed source software are unethical.

Is it ethical to allow unethical behavior?

link
akerl_ 1620 days ago
I feel like we’re in a loop. Are you saying that making software under MIT or closed source licenses allows unethical behavior in a way that makes creation of that software unethical? If so, can you back that up instead of asking rhetorical questions?

I write software personally, which I license under the MIT license. I write software professionally, which is closed source. I don’t believe either of those things is inherently unethical. There are obviously examples of any kind of software that are unethical, and there are ways that closed source licenses enable unethical behavior, but I’m not following the expansion of that to the license choice itself.

link
wizzwizz4 1620 days ago
MIT licenses enable closed source software that would otherwise have to be open source, is the point.
link
akerl_ 1620 days ago
“Would otherwise” assumes a default state where the original software was GPL, presumably. But the fact that the MIT license allows for use in closed source software isn’t in dispute.

Do you (and the other commenters in this thread) believe that closed source software is unethical? And if so, why?

And do you believe that MIT-licensed software is also unethical, because it allows for closed source usage? If so, why?

link