A professional peer of mine wrote the following article:
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/23417
which contains the following paragraph:
    Google's hired great open source developers from projects like

    Linux, Firefox, Samba and Apache.

    They all still have ties back into those projects. Now these key

    hires can help influence open source

    development projects that happen to indirectly benefit Google. Plus,

    open source developers would

    love to help improve their projects and displace Microsoft. A win-win.
I'd like to ask the community what they think: Is the hiring of open

source star coders in expectation of

ancillary benefit from their influence in Open Source projects a win-win

form of "voting with your

feet" or is it an ethical conflict? I'm curious how we all see this.
--

Jack J. Woehr

Director of Development

Absolute Performance, Inc.

jwoehr@absolute-performance.com

303-443-7000 ext. 527

Good for google!
They hire themselves into fame and therefore look "good" in the process.

If the individual thinks that the money is worth it for him/her we have

a transaction.  Nowhere do I see any ethical questions.  Google is in it

for the money and someone needs to pay a mortgage.  End of transaction.

Both parties benefit.
I am going to say something that most people will frown upon but here

goes.  Writing open/free source code is mostly a selfish activity.

That's right I said it.  I'd bet money that most people that write code

and give it away do it because they can and make themselves feel better

in the process (resume padding, fame, power in the community,

$my_reason_for_writing_free_code etc).  They don't do it for altruistic

reasons like "ZOMG I am stopping world hunger with OMGOS".  I am of the

opinion that all these so called ethical questions are trivial and

uninteresting.  A company selling software is in no way shape or form

unethical provided they abide by the law.  You might disagree with their

way of doing business but that really doesn't make it "unethical"; maybe

questionable behavior or unwanted behavior but really ethics are really

only applied to much more interesting life events.
Ask yourself this question.  Do you really believe that someone who

sells a product which was developed within the lawful frame work is

unethical?  Also ask yourself the question if you like computers and the

internets and if it would exist if it wasn't for some people making money

of it.  Do you work in the field of IT?  Are you therefore unethical?

You confusing the issue!  The software market - where you sell your product

(i.e., software) is unethical,

distorted and manipulated, and not by the ethical software crafters!  A

`win-win` case?  No, I don't think

so, it smells like a Fridmanite axiom to me.
ioan
This e-mail is intended for the addressee(s) named and may contain

confidential and/or privileged information. If you are not the intended

recipient, please delete it immediately and notify the sender. Any views

expressed in this email are those of the individual sender except where the

sender expressly and with authority states them to be the views of Fairfield

City Council.

Why is the software market unethical? Because there are some bad

apples? Gee, that makes pretty much every single business sector

unethical. Unless you're trying to say that selling software in itself

is unethical but that's bullshit.

Who are the ethical software crafters? Does simply not charging money

for your software make you ethical?

Most OSS, for example, can be, and is, used by governments to oppress

the people. Does that make working on OSS unethical?
---

Lars Hansson

Don't worry.  You can ask rms if your behaviour is ethical.  He'll set

you straight, and tell you to stop working for those companies and

For some reason, earlier mail on the strawllman-thread did not make it

to the list. I'm copying parts of some of these mails inline. Note

that both mails were CC:'ed to misc@ (so they were intended to end up

on the list. As such, i don't think using them inline here is a

problem)
On Thu, Jan 03, 2008 at 11:31:51PM -0700, Theo de Raadt wrote:

| Don't worry.  You can ask rms if your behaviour is ethical.  He'll set

| you straight, and tell you to stop working for those companies and

| instead suckle off your McArthur Idiot grant.
Quiting your job at those companies is just 'some discomfort' :
[note that, although I am Dutch, I currently do not live (or work) in

the Netherlands]
In the real world, people have jobs that, at the end of the day, pay

for the food on their plates and the roofs over their heads. In our

current world there are *very few* jobs in IT that do not deal with

non-free software in one way or another.
From my own experience, I've started as a Windows and NetWare guy.

Totally non-free software. I moved to supporting UNIX systems (HPUX,

Solaris and AIX with some Linux systems (with non-free parts added)

mixed in), mostly non-free software. I moved on to be admin of a mail

platform for a Dutch ISP. Much FreeBSD and other free software but we

had to use Windows for certain (administrative) tasks and were

required to use non-free anti-virus solutions. Then, I moved to

another ISP where I did UNIX support (for many different types of

UNIX, both free and non-free) and network admin for Cisco IOS and

Junipers JunOS (cisco routers and switches and juniper equipment could

be considered "appliances" like a microwave, still the software that

runs on them is non-free). I'm currently working for an American

software company in Switzerland, using mostly Linux for its servers.

The software my colleagues create (and ask me to install on those

Linux servers) is highly proprietary.
I've been working in IT for well over 10 years now. I can promise you

that, had I denoun...
[ message continues ]

On Jan 4, 2008 11:41 PM, Paul de Weerd <weerd@weirdnet.nl> wrote:
http://technews.acm.org/archives.cfm?fo=2007-04-apr/apr-09-2007.html#306282
-------

Cell phones also came under attack, for their ability to be used as "a

tracking device, even when it is turned off." In summing up a broader

philosophy, Stallman suggested, "Don't buy a house, a car, or have

children. The problem is they're expensive and you have to spend all

your time making money to pay for them."

-------
http://ia310134.us.archive.org/1/items/The_Basement_Interviews/Richard_S...
-------

RP: So how do you fund yourself today?
RS: I get paid for some of my speeches. In addition, when I am

travelling in a lot of places people don't let me pay for anything, so

life is cheaper. This is sort of amusing and makes me a little bit

like a medieval king. Medieval kings had to keep travelling all the

time because if they stayed in one place they would burden the people

there so much that the people would eventually get mad!
RP: Is that an adequate way of funding yourself?
RS: Loads of people invite me to visit them, and if I am there for a

few days they are happy to do things like pay for my food, and they

pay for me to go there, because otherwise I would go somewhere else

instead. And some of them also pay a fee.

-------
regards,

alexander.

In response to off-band inquiries...
Original linuxinsider.com article seems to be gone but full copy is

still available courtesy of chineselinuxuniversity.net. (I'm quoting

it in full below for the sake of convenience to RMS -- all those

remote wget burdens, y'know.)
http://www.chineselinuxuniversity.net/news/3308.shtml
-------

;6S-Dz=xHkVP9zLinux4sQ', D?G0NRCG5DW\W"2aSC;'J} 6227, W\5c;wJ} 7840636

  Google6(VFKQKw:   2008Dj1TB5HU PGFZAy  UPF8PEO"
 Linux4sQ' |  PBNE | <<JuNDUB | 5gWSJiSkHm<~ | WJT4U>5c | V\1(:MTSV> | DZ:K296! | HK2EVPPD | WTSIJ1?U

Free Software Foundation's Richard Stallman: 'Live Cheaply'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
U*WT: linuxinsider.com  1;TD6A4NJ}: 68
SI yangyi SZ 2007-04-05 14:04:18 La9)
Speaking at Lehigh University last week, Free Software Foundation

Founder Richard Stallman urged his audience to make open source not

just a way of computing, but a way of life. Using commercial

proprietary software leaves users "divided because we can't make

copies to help our neighbors and helpless because we can't see the

source code," Stallman said.
Free WiFi Hotspot Locator from TechNewsWorld

Wondering where to find the nearest publicly available WiFi Internet

access? Our global directory of more than 100,000 locations in 26

countries is a terrific tool for mobile computer users.
Richard Stallman doesn't own an MP3 player. He doesn't own a mobile

telephone. In fact, this techno-visionary -- a founder of the Free

Software Foundation -- doesn't use any of the usual computer programs

many people use.
He spent the better part of two hours last week, before a mostly

supportive audience at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., explaining

exactly why he has made these choices, which he couched not in

technical but in ethical terms, and why his foundation works to

promote what's called free software -- software that can be legally

copied, altered and exchanged.
With his long, slig...
[ message continues ]

"You shouldn't use them, because of the software, but also, because

    your cell phone is a tracking device, even when it is turned off,"

    Stallman said. Interestingly, in the minutes before the talk began,

    Stallman padded up one aisle in his stocking feet talking into what

    looked like a mobile telephone.
I don't carry a mobile phone, but I don't see anything wrong in

borrowing one from someone to make a call.  In the same sense, I would

consider it wrong for me to have a machine with Windows on it, or to

use one regularly, but I see nothing wrong in using someone else's

Windows machine for a few minutes.
I don't think the words quoted are my exact words.  Reporters

often change quotations.

On Sun, 06 Jan 2008 05:46:37 -0500, "Richard Stallman" <rms@gnu.org>
Blah blah blah. All this does is demonstrate what a moron you are.

So if it is a new model of cell phone and if the owner teaches you how

to use it and make life easy for you will that be
1) Wrong on his part to encourage you to using a device you don't use?
In the same sense OpenBSD does not promote the use of non free software.

It would be wrong if their distribution contained non-free software.
But some where ( just like you use take help from the mobile phone

owner to use it ) in the ports system are instructions to install a

non-free software which is not mandatory for users to use.
Do you get the logic at least now?
More than that you change your quotations

> I don't carry a mobile phone, but I don't see anything wrong in

    > borrowing one from someone to make a call.
    So if it is a new model of cell phone and if the owner teaches you how

    to use it and make life easy for you will that be
    1) Wrong on his part to encourage you to using a device you don't use?

    2) Wrong on your part to take his advice and help to use it?
Yes, that is my view of things.  Using the phone could be convenient

for me.  (I think it would be convenient for me.)  But it also

perpetuates serious problems (totalitarian surveillance, as well as

proprietary software).  These problems continue because people

tolerate them.  To solve them, we have to stop tolerating them.
OpenMoko will make substantial progress on both problems.  I might be

willing to carry an OpenMoko phone, but I would keep its antenna

switched off most of the time.
    But some where ( just like you use take help from the mobile phone

    owner to use it ) in the ports system are instructions to install a

    non-free software which is not mandatory for users to use.
The cases are similar, and my view on the two cases is similar.

On Sun, 06 Jan 2008 23:18:15 -0500, "Richard Stallman" <rms@gnu.org>
Bwa ha ha ha. I love these replies. they just show what a freaking

nutjob idiot you are.

Now pleeeeeease, STFU and go away.

--

http://www.glumbert.com/media/shift

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGvHNNOLnCk

"This officer's men seem to follow him merely out of idle curiosity."  --

Sandhurst officer cadet evaluation.

"Securing an environment of Windows platforms from abuse - external or

internal - is akin to trying to install sprinklers in a fireworks factory

where smoking on the job is permitted."  -- Gene Spafford

learn french:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1G-3laJJP0&feature=related

i don't. by tracking his switched off cellular phone?

"Just curious if you know how Kevin Mitnick was tracked down and

captured?"
And your point is? That if I'm *breaking* *the* *law* I should worry

about police forces lawfully acquiring court orders to tap and trace

my phone so as to gather evidence against me?

Please take your paranoid delusional nonsense to La La Land where you

and

rms can live happily ever after.

did the police go to the billing address of the cell phone he was

using and paying for?

Heh.  A simple search for kevin mitnick capture will give you tons of

links.  Here's one:
http://www.takedown.com/coverage/prince-hackers.html
I do apologize in advance for the link though - it was written by markoff.

There were... ethical issues with what he subsequently did.
--

http://www.glumbert.com/media/shift

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGvHNNOLnCk

"This officer's men seem to follow him merely out of idle curiosity."  --

Sandhurst officer cadet evaluation.

"Securing an environment of Windows platforms from abuse - external or

internal - is akin to trying to install sprinklers in a fireworks factory

where smoking on the job is permitted."  -- Gene Spafford

learn french:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1G-3laJJP0&feature=related

Indeed.

Here's a better link:

http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3429504/Freedom_Downtime_(2004_version)_-_Story_of_Hacker_Kevin_Mitnick
And no, to the best of my knowledge this is not copyright

infringement, because Emmanuel Goldstein of 2600 has mentioned on Off

The Hook sometime that he doesn't object to such copying, and

2600/Emmanuel is the copyright holder. Or just email him at 2600.com

if you're still unconvinced. Of course if you want to support 2600

magazine, an action I heartily encourage, you can also buy the DVD

(which is full of hidden features, cf.

http://www.2600.com/easter/eggs.html ) at

http://store.2600.com/film.html

So you call yourself a Freedom Zealot and whenever is is connvinent to

use the very things you recommend against. And condemn others if they

do the same or much even less.
So what did you do when you used a mobile phone for the first time/

You must have got instructions from somebody or some body must have

dialed for you or you must have got the information from a manual some

body has prepared for you right?
of course unless you have asp or some paranormal phenomenon for knowing things.
Your logic is perfectly this.
You are a prejudiced individual with a lot of ambition and aspirations.

And you would do anything you want when it is convenient but would

condemn other who does the same or even less and preach at he top of

your voice against the very things you practice and mislead a whole

lot of people who just like you don't research enough to know the

facts.

And you will twist your own words to justify your violations of your

own standards.

Addition, Deletion, and Distortion of your own standards/policies,

which you impose on others to follow, when you yourself break it

because it is not practical is your main Job.

Has anybody thought of this... the ports system is a facility that one

can 'borrow' and use on a OpenBSD system that _is_ used for their own

'convenience'!!! You can just improve it and give back your changes,

and most of the stuff you'll ever do with it has much to deal with

free software anyway - much better than that evil proprietary crap on

the mobile phone that will eat your child and shrink your penis, and

possibly organ damage!!!

You must mean Losedows (I've noted your habit of labeling Win32 as

Lose32... the motto must be: You can't WIN if you use LOSEdows),
Wow. Nice to know that you can sustain a few minutes of nonfreedom, irregularly.
regards,

alexander.

In February 2004, Mr Stallman did a keynote at an event held in Paris

called "Solutions Linux" (or stg along theses lines) about free software.

When someone asked him how to make a living of IT without using or

promoting non-free software, his answer was that you don't have to

work in the IT field to contribute to free software, and he'd prefer see

a kernel contributor being a taxi driver than administrating Windows

workstations (It may not be the very same words, but the intent is the

same).
FOS projects being what they are, they do not require any kind of

qualification to participate, only the final product (code, doc) is taken

in account. So I could be a gardener and contribute to projects I

estimate worthy. From a very abstract point of view, that's coherent.
But contributing is not an abstract process: a contributor has to run

into a problem to solve it. Personnally, I never managed to solve a

problem I couldn't grasp. And as a gardener, I'm not sure software will

be my first source of problems. Another point is if contributions are

my only contact with software, the range of my perceptions will be

greatly narrowed. You can't expect creativity to come from this

overconstrained setup: solutions often come from the 10.30 coffee

break, when you discuss with your colleagues.
So, I'm the first one to say we should judge on the results not the look,

but I think it's way harder to write quality code when not in IT.
--

Vincent

I thought you were leading up to a last clause of, "but I think it's

way harder to know which quality code to write, when not in IT." To

which I would have answered, "But what about the public bug tracking

system? Wouldn't that suffice for highlighting, to a person not

employed in IT (but still a hacker), the code that needs to be

written?"
Todd

A gardener? Replicating vegetables and charging for them is unethical

and antisocial.

Seeds and plants can be replicated at virtually no cost, and it is fun

to do.
http://z505.com/gng/free-gardening.htm
And charging for consulting about the gardening.. is being a prostitute.

Why would you want to unethically charge an hourly fee to discuss

gardening? You are holding back something that you should be giving all

your head to, for free. When I speak of freedom, I speak of free sex,

not cost.
http://z505.com/gng/

L, the above quoted text is not mine. You need to be more careful in

the configuration of your replies. I, for one, would appreciate it.

Sincere apologies.. 
It was a double > > and your name should have been removed, or the

original person should have been left above you.
I am getting used to Thunderbird,  but it is definitely my fault for

confusing that conversation.
L505

How can a software market be unethical?  It's not unethical for

someone to write software and not give away the code because you have

the option of not using it.  It wouldn't be unethical for Google to

hire away every OpenBSD developer and then stop them from writing any

more free code because a) we as users have no inherent right to the

code and b) even if we did, what we've already got will always be

free and c) we have no inherent right to expect the devs to keep

giving us code in the future.  Nevermind that they would probably

mostly quit rather that stop releasing free code anyway.  This is so

far from infringing on anyone's freedoms, I don't even understand how

the word ethics got into the discussion.
Jeremy

Many things sold by big business in the business market place have some

ethical problems.  For example, I personally don't shop at WallMart and

avoid as much as possible buying things from China.  However, I was

unable to find a new MB that was NOT made in China.  The only thing good

about WallMart is that in most small towns it promts the town to remove

parking meeters downtown.
Don't confuse "legal" with "ethical".  They are, unfortunatly, totally

distinct.  Many ethical things are legal and many legal things are

ethical but there are a times when an ethical act may be illegal and

there are many many times when an unethical act is legal.  
An individual who goes into the widget-invention business to put food on

the table is not inherently unethical if the widget in question is a

piece of software.  If the widge were a fax machine, I could sit down in

a machine shop and make an exact physical replica but unless I can read

the chips I can't duplicate the software on those chips that make the

fax machine anything more than a paperweight.  It is this distinction

which generates some philisophical debate.  Just as the phyicality of

the fax machine is "open source" where I could improve on it, I couldn't

then sell my improved version due to a likely patent on that model of

fax machine unless I did something totally new, patented it myself, and

made my fax machine look nothing like its inspiration.  Sure, as the

designer of a new-and-better fax machine, it would be nice to have the

source for those chips, the company doesn't have any incentive for

giving me that source even if it came with a license clause that forbade

distributing modified versions.  I don't see, though, how the company's

refusal to give me the source for the fax machine software is unethical.
Dou  Sure, as the designer of a new-and-better fax machine, it would be

nice to have the source for those chips, the company doesn't have any

incentive for giving me that source even if it came with a license

clause that for...
[ message continues ]

i think people should be allowed to decide for themselves where they

work.  i can't imagine wanting to live in any other system.

I totally agree with you. Thanks for your comment!
--

Jack J. Woehr

Director of Development

Absolute Performance, Inc.

jwoehr@absolute-performance.com

303-443-7000 ext. 527

I see it as reality.  I'm sure that lots of organizations which are

impacted by what the open source (and free-source) communites do (i.e.

what decisions they make) will hire people from those communities to do

two things:
If they're hoping to be interoperable with future open projects, yet

they want the solution faster than may happen if the community were left

alone, they may hire someone to work on it.  Imagine if, before OpenSSH

had been developed, a large networking company needed something like

what OpenSSH became and wanted it to be open so that their product would

interoperate.  They may hire someone who was working on it in their

spare time.  This kind of hiring directly benefits them but also the

wider community.
There's also the subversion class of hiring where, if they can't

infiltrate the community with one of their own, they would try to "turn"

a member of the community.
So, I suppose, as always, when one is inclined to take the advice of

someone on a major decision, it is prudent to look at their motivation

and their background; who they are working for.
Above-the-board hiring practices are fair and mutually beneficial.

Subversive practices are best documented and publisised.
Doug.