Ethics and Open Source Businesses
Are open source businesses fundamentally more ethical than proprietary businesses? Is the desire to monetize an open source project fundamentally unethical?
A couple weeks ago I did a podcast with Matt Butcher, who in addition to being CEO of Fermyon (an open source business!), also has a Ph.D. in philosophy. But the question of ethics came up during a workshop I did at FOSSY the week before last, on open source growth strategies and tactics, with Matt Yonkovit. Actually, it was kind of a joke, because at one point during the workshop he mentioned, in response to a question, that we’d talk about ethical open source businesses the following day, during the dedicated track we had organized together. But actually our track was about sustainable open source businesses, not ethical ones — and I reminded him of that fact.
It got some laughs, but it’s actually an interesting question. I don’t think many people really set out to build unethical businesses of any kind — when it happens, it’s usually not because an evil villain set out to screw customers over, but rather a series of small, inconsequential decisions that together add up to something that many people view as unethical. But it’s also that well-meaning, non-evil people can disagree on what is ethical, particularly in relation to open source and money.
One of Matt Butcher’s comments, during the podcast, is that he views GPL licenses as fundamentally unethical. In his view, the idea of trying to control how someone uses the software goes against the principles of open source.
My personal view on this is, first of all, that building an open source company is ethically neutral. It is not more or less ethical than building a proprietary software company, it is not more or less ethical than working on or maintaining an open source project without any plans for monetization (and either sticking with your day job or sticking with your crappy basement apartment). To be clear, you’ll also find some open source hippies who think getting rich is ethically problematic — I am not one of those, either. Getting rich is also ethically neutral, as is being poor.
However, I do think open source businesses have more ethical landmines to navigate than proprietary software, because they have to balance building a free product and building community with keeping the lights on. Sometimes this leads people to do things like change the license, take features out of the open source software and put them in paid, prioritize or even alienate the community.
Open source founders risk being called hypocrites because, well, they kind of are. Proprietary software company founders are up front about it: We are building this company and we’d like to do well financially, thank you very much. Open source founders are forced by the nature of the game to talk out of two sides of their mouth. “Blah blah giving back to the community;” “Blah blah ARR and sales pipeline.” It’s possible to get this right and not piss people off, but it is harder than if you just have a proprietary software.
To wrap up, I’ll also say this: People like to say “unethical businesses are not sustainable” and other feel good stuff. I don’t believe that. Ethical businesses can be sustainable; but so can unethical ones. This is why I made the joke during the workshop. I hope you build an ethical business, because when people out there perceive individual open source businesses as unethical, it brings down the brand of all open source businesses.
Lastly, if you’ve read this far: I know I was not sending emails all the last two weeks — I admire those who can continue writing while they travel, but I had good intentions but couldn’t do it. I was at FOSSY, then at Kubernetes Community Days in Munich. And stuck in Philadelphia for two days because of canceled flights in the midst. :)