From the same basis as your entire argument, is that not evident?
You have contributed your knowledge to this forum under the Creative Commons. Would you then be pleased to see some third party preventing others from gaining access to that?
Open source and open standards (and open discussion fora like this one - thank you Red Hat) provide us an interesting opportunity to behave ethically.
When I create a document or a data file in a proprietary format, I force people who might wish to collaborate with me to adopt the tools I use. In many cases, in many places, "it is common practice" for those users to grab an unlicensed version of those tools and start collaborating.
I would claim such a "community work" is, in principle, unethical. As the person who chooses to start such aa initiative, I'm probably not violating my EULA, though my collaborators with unlicensed software are certainly taking their chances with the manufacturer and perhaps the law.
In the case where an organization, especially a government organization or a company that operates in countries with varying degrees of protection for IP, requires that all information be communicated via proprietary standards, and that organization accepts the input of people using unlicensed software, it appears that there is an issue of whether or not the "value" generated by the collaboration can actually be claimed to be owned by the organization.
To suggest that something created with "stolen property" is itself "stolen property" takes the conversation in an unnecessarily drastic direction. The simple reality is that knowingly creating incentives for people to act illegally or at least unethically is itself unethical behaviour.
From this perspective, the government support for open source and open standards in countries like Brazil and France is laudable. These governments are inviting their citizens to collaborate in the governing of the country without breaking the law to do so.
A wonderful, open source facility like this web site, also promotes ethical behaviour, through its very existence. A particularly notable aspect of this is that collaborators must agree to their work being placed in Creative Commons, thereby removing further incentives for unethical behaviour.
Again, thanks, Red Hat, for giving us all this opportunity.
Authored Comments
From the same basis as your entire argument, is that not evident?
You have contributed your knowledge to this forum under the Creative Commons. Would you then be pleased to see some third party preventing others from gaining access to that?
Open source and open standards (and open discussion fora like this one - thank you Red Hat) provide us an interesting opportunity to behave ethically.
When I create a document or a data file in a proprietary format, I force people who might wish to collaborate with me to adopt the tools I use. In many cases, in many places, "it is common practice" for those users to grab an unlicensed version of those tools and start collaborating.
I would claim such a "community work" is, in principle, unethical. As the person who chooses to start such aa initiative, I'm probably not violating my EULA, though my collaborators with unlicensed software are certainly taking their chances with the manufacturer and perhaps the law.
In the case where an organization, especially a government organization or a company that operates in countries with varying degrees of protection for IP, requires that all information be communicated via proprietary standards, and that organization accepts the input of people using unlicensed software, it appears that there is an issue of whether or not the "value" generated by the collaboration can actually be claimed to be owned by the organization.
To suggest that something created with "stolen property" is itself "stolen property" takes the conversation in an unnecessarily drastic direction. The simple reality is that knowingly creating incentives for people to act illegally or at least unethically is itself unethical behaviour.
From this perspective, the government support for open source and open standards in countries like Brazil and France is laudable. These governments are inviting their citizens to collaborate in the governing of the country without breaking the law to do so.
A wonderful, open source facility like this web site, also promotes ethical behaviour, through its very existence. A particularly notable aspect of this is that collaborators must agree to their work being placed in Creative Commons, thereby removing further incentives for unethical behaviour.
Again, thanks, Red Hat, for giving us all this opportunity.