Business Ethics and Open Source Software

I just read a story on a website with Joerg Schwarz about ethics in open source software. There are in my opinion, problems with the points put forward by Mr Schwarz is that he is mixing his concepts, which creates a contradiction in his argument. Firstly Mr Schwarz fervently advocates a true open market, with true free trade with comments like

Locke teaches that everybody deserves compensation for the fruit of labor, adequate to the value created by the labor. That applies to a farmer and a software developer alike. Compensation is not necessarily monetary.

and

The economical response to this would be that the market determines the price with supply and demand.

Which is a very refreshing viewpoint in these very altruistic times, however, he then goes on to muddy the waters with the altruistic dogma about ethics within the transaction between free software developer and the corporation / business.

A free and open market dictates that a trade or contract between two parties, is arrived at by mutual negotiation, where the trade is to the mutual benefit to both parties. To put this another way, the software is the result of the fruits of the developers labour, the developer in order to enable the mutually beneficial trade, adds a software licence which dictates the terms and conditions that the developer is prepared to trade by. The consumer of the software (in this case the business) by using the software agrees to abide by the terms of the software agreement. Thereby, a trade has taken place, in accordance with the software developers wishes and by mutual agreement between the parties. If either party breaks the terms of the contract (licence agreement) they liable under the terms of that mutual agreement.

It is fundamentally incorrect to apply the rules of free trade in a free exchange to the mutual agreement of both parties bound by a contract (software licence), then muddy the waters by claiming that, although the former is correct there are implied rules of ethics that the developer forgot to include in the licence agreement that, although unwritten, must be observed, interpreted and then adhered to.

If you have a situation, like Mr Schwarz outlined

“… Another example is Apple’s operating systems, which contain code released under BSD. BSD does not require derivatives to be distributed under BSD, but the spirit of sharing would require Apple to release the graphical user interface.”

then clearly the developer needs to write a clause in the “the contract” to take this “spirit of sharing” into account. What is less fair than the example outlined by Mr Schwarz, is any company (Microsoft or Open Source Developers) releasing the software under a licence (which is chosen by their own volition) then crying foul because, “we wanted some people to use it for free, but we didn’t mean it to be used by these people“.

Unfortunately the world is full of double edged swords, The constitution is a first class example which allows the same freedom of speech to flag burners, anti-American Muslim clerics and the average American Joe, with equal legitimacy. Just because we don’t like what they have to say, doesn’t mean we get to change the rules to suit our needs as we go.

If the Open Source developers want a different deal, sit down and write an appropriate licence with all of your terms and conditions laid out clearly for everyone to see. If you want the software to only be used by non-profits, charities and other non-profit organizations and individuals you need to write that into your licence, and release your software under the licence.

Implied meanings, and unspoken rules are the realm of the mystic, not the realm of logic, if you want it to be understood, then you have to communicate it, or face disappointment. No contract or licence is worth the paper it’s written on when based on the fluffy, unstable premise of “Do What I Mean, Not What I Say”