> […] I'd simply not buy that car […]
That was not the question. The question was if would be ethically OK to sell that car, not if you (or anyone else) would buy it or not.
> But you'll be hard pressed to convince me it's a problem for your $3 copy of Canabalt.
It also wouldn’t really be a large issue with a simple enough car or car-like conveyance, like maybe a bicycle, or a Segway. Does this make it OK?
> It doesn't need an oil change.
Software needs updating. Static software is dead code.
That's not the deciding factor. I've no particular ethical qualm with it if you know full well what you're getting into and choose it.
>> […] I'd simply not buy that car […]
> That was not the question. The question was if would be ethically OK to sell that car, not if you (or anyone else) would buy it or not.
"Neither choice is based on ethics." The ethics of the sale would depend on the other particulars, but if we assume those other particulars were all ethical, then yes, I'd say it's ethically OK to sell you that car.
Let's take a few concrete examples where a car has indeed been welded shut.
- I'm selling you the car for you to resell at a profit as scrap metal. - I'm selling a clunker I tried to "repair". A few poorly followed DIY guides later and... well, I made some mistakes. - In a fit of mental illness, or for the sake of a harmless prank, I welded my car shut intentionally.
In which circumstances should I feel guilt trying to sell it to you? To me, it's the ones where I'm trying to mislead you. That could be any of the above (I lie and say it's not welded, lie about the scrap tonnage, I try to convince you welded cars are in vogue, etc.) or none of the above (I'm upfront about the facts and ensure you know what you're getting into.)
>> But you'll be hard pressed to convince me it's a problem for your $3 copy of Canabalt.
> It also wouldn’t really be a large issue with a simple enough car or car-like conveyance, like maybe a bicycle, or a Segway. Does this make it OK?
I didn't say you'll be hard pressed to convince me it's a "small enough" issue or problem to fly under some ethical radar or waterline. I'm saying you'll be hard pressed to convince me it's a problem, period.
>> It doesn't need an oil change.
> Software needs updating. Static software is dead code.
I disagree with your assertions. You might want to update it, but there's a big difference between want and need. Plenty of old DOS and cartridge games are still quite playable. And for the purposes of archival and preservation of the commons, I think a focus on emulation provides more bang for the buck than trying to modernize every abandoned application - and, it should be noted, doesn't require updating the software.
EDIT: On the subject of unanswered questions, I'll repose my original one to you since the original poster isn't answering.
Do you actually think my day job - making (proprietary) games - is immoral? A daily dose of evil?
One could make the same argument about any laissez-faire economical proposal, like “Do I have the right to sell myself into slavery?” Some things are prohibited, even though people are, in theory, well aware of what they are doing. One could argue that this is one of those things that ought to be prohibited.
> You might want to update it, but there's a big difference between want and need.
I would argue that it is my right to update the software to changing circumstances. Otherwise, it’s like a solid-block car with DRM; unchangeable, and (once support is dropped) increasingly unusable due to changes in its environment. These characteristics (pay for a limited time of support, after which it becomes practically unusable) is more akin to renting than buying. If I buy a thing, I would expect it to be my right to modify it according to my circumstances for all time, since I now own it. For software, I can’t practically do so without the source code.
> Do you actually think my day job - making (proprietary) games - is immoral? A daily dose of evil?
Words like “evil” have unreasonable amounts of emotional attachments, so since you are pressing me, I feel like you are setting an rhetorical trap, so I will refuse to use that word. I will say, though, that you are quite possibly making the world slightly worse instead of better. The fact that people are taught to be helpless and powerless is a bad thing. Whether you are, on the whole, doing a bad thing depends on whether any positive impact of your game (your game, mind you, as compared to any possible replacement game) is large enough to offset this. This could possibly be true, and perhaps not – I do not feel competent to judge this.
> Words like “evil” have unreasonable amounts of emotional attachments, so since you are pressing me, I feel like you are setting an rhetorical trap, so I will refuse to use that word.
Please note this thread started with some rather emotionally attached wordage applied broadly. And with me very explicitly responding to that wordage. The entire basis of my question centered around that phrasing. It's what I responded to. If you're not interested in handling it... what exactly are you trying to help explain from davorb's post? Are you sure that what you're explaining was in davorb's post?
I think the difference between you and I is a simple one of opinion. Correct me if I'm wrong: You see providing ease of modification as a rights driven moral mandate. I see providing ease of modification as a virtue worth encouraging - sometimes through law - especially when the good to society outweighs the burden or harm to the authors. But I do not see it as a moral mandate, because I do not see 'ease of modification of another's work' to be a right. I do not see it as a right because I see imposing that much burden on the author to be a clear violation of their rights. I have no right to demand a novelist's draft notes or plotline sketches, the LaTeX documents that generated their PDFs, none of it.
Where rights collide, one must strike a careful balance. Let us suppose that one has a right to modification: I think the current length of copyright is unreasonably long, unreasonably in favor of the author, harming the commons and that 'right to modification'. But I agree with the original principle of copyright - to provide an author a means to support themselves via temporary monopoly of the fruits of their labor - and feel that demanding they make it easy to subvert that monopoly from the very get go, to be unreasonably against the author. And although I'm fine with e.g. legalizing jail-breaking a phone, I feel I've no right to demand it be easy.
My ideal world involves much shorter copyright durations (somewhere between 5-20 years max?), better enforced (and perhaps simply by being more reasonable, it will be more respected?), with a richer commons at the end. You could even try to make these rights balance against each other: e.g. for software only providing the protections of copyright only to those who provide their source code.
------
>> I've no particular ethical qualm with it if you know full well what you're getting into and choose it.
> One could make the same argument about any laissez-faire economical proposal
I'm not arguing about "any" laissez-faire economical proposal, I'm arguing about a car I welded shut. I'm also not arguing that there aren't other particulars that must be considered. A mugger clearly explains to you so you know what you're getting into and offers you a choice: Give him all your money in exchange for not shooting you. I'm not saying that's ethical!
> like “Do I have the right to sell myself into slavery?” Some things are prohibited
Tell that to a court-martial when you change your mind about enlisting after a war starts. I have many ethical concerns about military recruiting and some of the incentive structures around enlistment, but no particular problem with allowing enlistment. I absolutely cannot fathom those who would want to do this, however, as to me, they very much are selling themselves into slavery - a potentially very dangerous slavery - a slavery which may very well last for the rest of their lives.
> These characteristics (pay for a limited time of support, after which it becomes practically unusable) is more akin to renting than buying. If I buy a thing, I would expect it to be my right to modify it according to my circumstances for all time, since I now own it. For software, I can’t practically do so without the source code.
Do you consider free as in beer - but proprietary - software to be immoral? You didn't buy it. Do you consider free as in beer - but proprietary, and subscription requiring - software to be immoral? You're clearly renting it. Do you consider renting out to people to be immoral?
I can sympathize a little with the "I thought I was buying it but all I got was renting a license" argument. Enough I could potentially agree with, say, an argument that DRMed music is immoral. I'm of the opinion that invasive and negligently DRMed music is immoral (see: Sony rootkits.) But I certainly don't assume I'm buying a DRM-free game complete with source access when I buy a game off Steam - nor I think do most gamers. And being okay with subscription payment model, but not okay with a one time fee payment model, requires some level of cognitive dissonance I simply don't have. I also have no fundamental moral issue with rental, software or otherwise.
> Words like “evil” have unreasonable amounts of emotional attachments, so since you are pressing me, I feel like you are setting an rhetorical trap, so I will refuse to use that word. I will say, though, that you are quite possibly making the world slightly worse instead of better.
You're quite suspicious of me. But to your credit, you're at least not jumping to conclusions.
> The fact that people are taught to be helpless and powerless is a bad thing.
Given just how rampant piracy and cracking, or hacking and modding is, it's a hard sell to me to say that proprietary software is actually teaching this. In fact, I'd argue just the opposite - it's clear any and all barriers proprietary software devs try to come up with to protect their profits are overcome by the users with time. And by "with time" I mean a possibly negative amount of time, where cracked versions of the game release before the non-cracked version does. Vibrant and awesome modding societies pop up around proprietary games - including those that were intentionally hostile to modding (e.g. in a bid to make lives more difficult for cheaters.) Some good, some bad.
And while I'd generally agree with your statement, I admit - I wouldn't consider it a bad thing if pirates felt a bit more helpless and powerless when it comes to intentionally and willfully draining a dev's resources (server bandwidth, support resources, etc.) under false pretext ("I totally bought your game!") while giving nothing in return. Because that's simply not a fair or equitable exchange.
> Whether you are, on the whole, doing a bad thing depends on whether any positive impact of your game (your game, mind you, as compared to any possible replacement game) is large enough to offset this. This could possibly be true, and perhaps not – I do not feel competent to judge this.
And yet I feel judged. To be fair, I asked to hear it, so thank you for responding. But: surely it's only fair to compare the positive impact of my game against the positive impact of the activity that would have replaced it, not against every possible activity? Otherwise, even if I've done zero harm, I'm left competing with "solving world hunger, cancer, and heart disease" all at once. Even if we limit it to games, there was that protein folding puzzle game, wasn't there?
