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Comment by stephenr | Hacker News Reader

> Obviously, but that's because businesses act unethically

This is like saying women shouldn’t wear short skirts because men can’t be trusted not to rape them.

It’s ridiculous and insulting to people that run businesses that do act ethically and do engage with open source in a positive manner.

You’re judging all business as unethical, before they have a chance to do anything, and against the evidence of companies that use permissively licensed software in a positive way.

Attitudes like this are why people don’t like the GPL and it’s proponents.

Edit: holy ironic shit, I just noticed the last sentence you wrote:

> so that non-free software licenses are illegal or severely restricted.

This is fucking insane. It’s a terrible suggestion and needs to be recognised as such.

Edit: terrible ideas are terrible.

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>This is fucking insane. It’s a terrible suggestion and you should feel terrible for having made it.

It's actually a very good suggestion and I feel good about it. Another way of saying this is that intellectual property restrictions should be greatly relaxed. What's insane is that an overwhelming majority of time, money and energy in the tech sector goes into software that is closed source, and thus technological progress is greatly hindered because research and code is unable to be shared openly. Imagine, for example, the vast public good that would arise from Google or Microsoft opening up their entire code bases for free. Think about how much good has already arisen from their respective open source projects already, & if that was extended to all their products.

Regardless, my point is not that every business acts unethically, but rather that in any business there exists a tension between private profit and public good. This is one specific example -- it is in the interest of a private company to keep their code bases closed and proprietary, but it is in the public good for all software to be free an open.

> Imagine, for example, the vast public good that would arise from Google or Microsoft opening up their entire code bases for free.

Why stop with code? If code is always better in the open, then why not require all business communication in the open.

> in any business there exists a tension between private profit and public good

I don't think there is always a tension. If not by profit, how do you motivate people to develop new technology and fund the support system necessary for development?

>Why stop with code? If code is always better in the open, then why not require all business communication in the open

Sounds good to me, a kind of freedom of information act for private corporations.

> Regardless, my point is not that every business acts unethically

And yet your suggested solution is to treat them all as if they are.

> businesses act unethically

Perhaps the more charitable reading of this is that some businesses act unethically, and they should be called out for doing so?

I think the meaning is not that some act unethically, but that they are incentivized to act unethically, e.g. by being allowed to externalize costs and then being by making their survival dependent on how well they did it.

>> so that non-free software licenses are illegal or severely restricted. > This is fucking insane. It’s a terrible suggestion and you should feel terrible for having made it.

This is an unacceptable comment. If you disagree with the parent, then write so in a manner that opposes and disproves the comment, not outright go for personal attacks.

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