Ethics of Open Source Copy of Proprietary Software

Question

The free open-source software movement has been beneficial to most of the software development community. We have tons of libraries and applications at our fingertips free of cost. But where do you draw the line? Or do you?

If Developer A creates Application A, yet you know you could create a similar application and distribute it as open-source, do you feel guilty? What if Application A is the primary means of income for his/her family?

Bottom Line: Where do you draw the line between creating open-source applications and possibly taking revenue away from the independent developer?

I am not expecting, nor conveying a stance in either direction. Just looking for the personal views of the SO community (as stated in onebyone's reply).

Answer 1

"If Developer A creates Application A, yet you know you could create a similar application and distribute it as open-source, do you feel guilty?"

If Developer B creates a similar application and markets it using the proceeds to feed his family.

What's the difference? IN both cases it is competition, are you suggesting that competition is unethical, guilt producing behavior? If so what makes competition unethical?

Answer 2

It's free market competition, isn't it? What if Microsoft created such an application, and released it for free? (Yes, I'm thinking of Netscape.) If you don't do it, someone else will fill the gap, if it's a big enough itch worth scratching.

Answer 3

You shouldn't care, unless you are doing something illegal.

Everyone is free to choose licensing terms of his own work, and take responsibility.

But, remember, the same might happen to you ;) Someone might create free copy of you payware app.

I don't mind software being free, but I wish there were free cars,lunch, real estates, ...

Answer 4

The issue has never come up for me, but if you can write Application A++ which is a replacement for Application A, and which you're willing to distribute at a lower price than Application A (e.g. free), then the classic economic response is that the developer of A doesn't deserve to get money for it any more. They can either improve their product or do something else, not get paid for an obsolete product.

If Application A contains original ideas from that developer which happen not to have been patented, but which you believe could or should be patentable, then you might feel a moral obligation to avoid copying them. Doing so would be illegal if they were GiantMegaCorp, and if you feel that it's just for GiantMegaCorp to be protected from "theft" of intellectual "property", then you might feel it unjust that the indie developer isn't protected just because they can't afford recourse to the law. Of course there's a risk that if you don't someone else will, but the same's true of drug dealers and you don't deal drugs (I expect).

Snigger quotes around "theft" and "property" are there because a lot of people who support FOSS are in any case opposed to software patents, or to any kind of IP for software, or to any kind of IP at all. So it may be a non-issue: if someone is feeding their family by doing something you believe to be wrong (selling software, dealing crack to 8-year-olds, whatever), then you still want them to stop, don't you? Either you believe in social security (or personal charity), or else you believe that economically unproductive people and their families should die of starvation. Either way, developer A failing to earn is not an intractable problem, and that's even assuming they can't find an alternative to developing Application A. Maybe they'll go do something more worthwhile.

I refuse to say what my position is, though. Firstly I'm not sure it's consistent, and second I'd rather just offer something to think about on either side.

Answer 5

You seem to be (erroneously in my opinion) equating open source with free cost. You can open source your app and still rely on copyright law and licensing to restrict its use to those that pay.

In any event, I don't see this as any different from creating a competitive product and selling it - you're still affecting A's livelihood.

I suppose if you vindictively set out to ruin A, that's morally dubious but I don't think competing is a problem.

Answer 6

Competition is good.

Answer 7

"you know you could create a similar application and distribute it as open-source, do you feel guilty?"

I sounds like your question is based on an implicit claim that an open-source product will immediately displace a product that has proprietary source AND support.

Do you have any evidence that anyone offering support for a product has been put out of business by an open source product which has no support? I'd like the example as a reference, since it seems rare, to me.

I have examples like Red Hat inc. that are offering support for open source products and making money offering support for open source. They aren't displaced by open source, they're exploiting it.

I have examples like Microsoft inc. that offer dreadful products, yet see little or no impact from open source competitive products. Open Office does not seem to be leading to massive layoffs in Redmond.

I think your premise -- open source always displaces proprietary source -- could be flawed.

Answer 8

Is Linus Torvalds guilty for taking money away from Bill Gates? No, he just created his own solution to the same problem.

Many like his solution, mainly those who don't like to pay for Windows, but (still) many more keep paying for Windows (let's disconsider piracy, which is much more unethical, just for the sake of this argument) because (a) they are used to it, and (b) paid software usually is associated with security, in which the company that bought it can sue the vendor if it causes damages.

Your App B will always be somewhat different from Application A, and price is just one of the differences.

If it's too similar, on the other hand, then we're talking plagiarism and not competition.

Answer 9

You don't. It's not your place to worry about taking money away from a closed-source program. If the your program is making life difficult for Developer A, then he needs to get off his butt and improve his product so it becomes desirable.

One of the problems with the current legal arena is the belief that infringing on a business plan is illegal. It's not; it's simply competition. You either evolve and adapt or you die.

Look at Microsoft. After Netscape was killed off, MS rested on its laurels with Internet Explorer. It took Firefox to come along and get some significant market share before MS decided to improve IE.

Developer A is perfectly able to open-source his application and make money in an alternative fashion, the most common being pay-for-support. But he could also sell T-shirts with the application's logo, provide a manual for a small donation, etc. Or he can keep it closed-source and hope that people are willing to pay for the feature-set, convenience, or whatever.

Just because someone thinks the only way to make money is by selling closed-source programs doesn't mean everyone has to agree. Personally, if I ever decide to try and make money with my programs, I will provide the source code for free but charge for binaries. That way "lazy" people can pay me for my services while savvy people can built from source. It's a similar idea for Trolltech's license agreements for Qt.

Answer 10

I agree is most of the answers. Yes, it is legal, and yes, open-source "copies" will be made. But do you personally have any moral objection to creating copies of such software?

I don't consider any answers to be right or wrong.

Answer 11

If a company invests R&D effort in solving a user's problem in a very specific way, then blatantly copying that solution is, in my book, unethical. Providing your own solution to the same problem isn't. Of course, some features will be common, but you should provide some fresh ideas, not just a direct clone.

As an aside, people here seem to confuse law and ethics. In my book, whether that solution has been patented or not, and whether the company does decide (or can afford) to sue the open source competitor is irrelevant to ethics. And vice versa - many companies can probably afford to sue open-source projects without any reasonable reasons just to shut them out, but that doesn't make it ethical.

Answer 12

I guess I don't understand the question, specifically why you're treating software as a special case. Look at the number of movies with similar plot lines, or books that mirror others, or similar cars, or comparable songs. Why would competition between software products be immoral when competition in any other venue is generally seen as a good thing?

Developer A does not have a natural right to earn income off Application A. While he may want to, that doesn't automatically make it the end result. Look at it from another angle: if Application A was so easily reproducible that someone else could recreate it and give it away for free, perhaps Application A was only commercially viable by a temporary inefficiency in the market. When the FOSS version comes along and addresses that efficiency, the market as a whole benefits because then Developer A's customers can invest that money more effectively to solve other problems.

Finally, if you're drawing the distinction purely on the fact that the FOSS alternative is distributed free of charge, then I'd ask you consider whether it's moral for kids to organize garage bands, or for an author to give away copies of his book, or for me to write a love letter to my wife instead of buying a card written by someone with the intent of feeding his family.