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jbm 19 hours ago

> Open-source software isn't a moral good

Yes it is.

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ericmay 18 hours ago | parent [-]

Prove it

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Isamu 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I’ll take a swing at it. Open Source is a form of sharing with the wider community. Closed Source is not sharing. Moral good is based on doing good outside of your own benefit (the opposite of selfishness.)

Ergo it’s a kind of moral good.

And I’m not even an advocate for open source.

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ericmay 14 hours ago | parent [-]

This argument boils down to X is good, therefore more of X is good. But you can see how that breaks down with even trivial examples. Not a great argument.

The second piece of this "a moral good is based on doing good outside of your own benefit" - says who? Why? This logic is also faulty. You're also cargo-cutting self-interest in here as a moral failure when many good things depend on humans acting in their own self interest. For example I completely and selfishly installed a new tree at my house. But the community benefits from carbon capture, shade, &c.

I understand the sentiment you have here and I think for everyday use and having some guiding principles it is probably fine, but don't confuse this for a principle that is actually examined. You can find contradictions rather easily, never mind solid arguments which expose cases where what you think is true is not really true and so forth.

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Isamu 10 hours ago | parent [-]

Thanks for the discussion.

>This argument boils down to X is good, therefore more of X is good.

No, I only argued that it was a moral good, the kind of good. I actually may disagree with others about whether you should pursue a good just because it’s good.

>says who? Why?

Good question, it’s just a common framing that I see in classical discussions. I didn’t intend for it to be exclusive, I think there’s moral good outside of that.

>don't confuse this for a principle that is actually examined

I hear you, I think this is a simplified version suitable for an online comment. In particular I’m not saying that if you do something other than a moral good then you are doing something wrong. There are many actions that are morally neutral. Also it is possible to construct artificial situations where you may violate some moral good in pursuit of another.

	▲	ericmay 33 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		That's fair, I don't really take a large issue with anything you wrote here. My general point was to shake loose some dogmatic apples hanging on to their naive and unsubstantiated beliefs that open-source must be some moral good and closed-source must be some moral bad. Both can be good or bad. Thanks

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jimnotgym 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Justify your assertion and let people disprove it

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Razengan 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No u

	▲	ericmay 17 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That's just like, your opinion.... man....