Bonum Certa Men Certa

The 'Ethics in Software' Decoy

Article by Jagadees.S

A techie eye



Summary: "Revenge, punishment and 'cancel culture' are themselves unethical. It's a fascist programme."

Nowadays I am seeing a lot of articles which talk about ethics of/in software. That made me wonder, what happened to the world? Does everyone become saints and angels except Saint IGNUcius? Most of these are coming from the OEM/open source software world. It is not a surprise to me. They will do anything to make "the system" happy.



Their "ethics" are so vast that you may wonder how many "ethics" exist in this world. They worry about a lot of things in this world -- things like slavery, indentured servitude, gambling, tobacco, adversely addictive behaviors, nuclear energy, warfare, weapons manufacturing, and war crimes. The list goes on. I appreciate their wide-open minds or the ability to see all these (un)ethical issues. Have they ever asked a question about why these many (un)ethical issues are occurring in this small world of humans in few millennia compared to life on Earth?

Does/should software have any ethics?



Before answering this question you first have to ask/answer, "why software?" Software programs are required for the people to run their computers or to do their computing. Software is also a product in the market. It serves its customers (called "users"). (Somebody told me that there are only two industries that call their customers "users"; one is technology companies the other are drug dealers.) Whatever. As per the market rules, sellers should be trustworthy and a seller respectful to its users. Don't cheat. So the first level of ethics in software is how you treat your customer/user.

"Somebody told me that there are only two industries that call their customers "users"; one is technology companies the other are drug dealers."Now tell me, "open source" people, where do you stand on this? Tell me who respects users at an ultimate level? What is your level of care about users?

Computerised hotel



Initially, at a time when computers came into our society in India, there was lot of business adaption to it. Mostly for record-keeping, account-keeping etc. but they advertised that their firm is computerised. Since back then computers were something like an advanced 'sci-fi' thing, nobody had seen it in an ad which gave the public a 'selling point'. Computerised hairdressing, computerised tea shop, computerised hospital, computerised hotel etc. Some shiny computer will be there, but all other things will be old. Customers will have to suffer from an old system, but they may get a bill from some computer. Great, right? But you may have to pay more. But they don't tell you that. You will also not notice.

From this perspective, a customer is getting very little extra benefit. So from the customer’s viewpoint it doesn't matter whether you use computerised billing or not. Important things for a customer are what he/she gets from the product. But customers are ignorant and are easy for manipulation experts to fool. They will fall into the trap created by corporate PR. Good example for this may be soft drinks. It destroys one's gut/intestinal health and even dental/tooth health; entire bodies might also get ruined/decayed by drinking that. Still, people are so fond of it. Cigarette, fossil fuels etc. -- those kinds of things are extreme. Exxon knew that CO2 makes global warming worse and climate change faster even in the 1960s. Check what they did after that.

Now tell me, if the software engineers developing a software program respect women, does the customer get any benefits? It's OK. No... No… It’s a great thing. It's great that you respect women and consider all humans as equal. Thank you very much. But what will user get from it? I want my software to serve me. So whatever ethics these "open source" people tell me about are are just a PR piece of work (like cigarette and fossil fuels).

GPL as the ultimate ethical thing a software program ever gets



In 1983 a person with high ethical values asked some genuine questions about software. The result was a silent revolution in many aspects of human thought and in many disciplines. (That is his contribution to humanity. Not a few coded lines.) He made it reality -- whatever he preached with great personal sacrifices.

"Customers will have to suffer from an old system, but they may get a bill from some computer. Great, right? But you may have to pay more."He and his movement defined 4 rules for software. It's commonly called the GNU General Public License (or copyleft). It gives its users full power -- full control over what they buy/get. Users' rights are the most important ethical thing for a piece of software.

So, the ultimate "ethics" of software is something like the GPL. Dear ethics preachers, tell me your ethics with respect to your own users...

Your ethics are punishing people



It is not a surprise that your ethics are punitive in nature. You are just sadists. You serve only the bosses. You target individual persons and isolate them, applying/imposing your ethics on them (him/her). You create a villain out of them and ask the community to lynch them. This is classic fascist tactics.

Political problems need a political solution. It's not about an individual person’s set of ethics. Unethical system forces unethical behaviors. So work for system change. For that you have think and work together with all the people. You cannot solve it individually. You cannot solve it by 'cancel culture'.

Your ethics are just a decoy



1. User friendly

For supposed care about users, people who use software, you've created another decoy called user friendliness. You assume that the customer is dumb, and you will do all the things that are good for the so-called 'dumb' users. Of course software should do its work as perfectly as possible. But that is not the only thing. You use it distract the users from their rights and also to loot them like the colonialists in the name of 'civilising' (as colonists did in the past centuries).

2. User rights

Like priests you are shouting a lot of "ethics". We know that it's a just a decoy. Just to divert away from the real ethical issues. Really ethical software empowers its users. You want to hide real ethics. Because it's damaging your bosses’ profits. It ends your bosses’ control over users. It stops surveillance capabilities long exploited by your bosses. It destroys psychological manipulation capabilities of your bosses.

So you created a decoy. With all your media power you made it a central issue. But we know that you are frauds. You are just diverting attention of people, using these phony issues related to software. I am not saying there are no other issues in our society. But users' freedom is the number one issue in software. Because it's not like many other products. All other issues come only after that. Once you free the users, then you can think about other issues. So stop playing games. Stop your 'ethicswash'.

"I am not saying there are no other issues in our society. But users' freedom is the number one issue in software. Because it's not like many other products. All other issues come only after that. Once you free the users, then you can think about other issues. So stop playing games. Stop your 'ethicswash'."First try to accept GPL-like licensing. Then add more ethics on top of it, if so you've needed.

Rulers have no right to define ethics



The same government and politicians who lynched innocent people in unending wars cannot be considered as a custodian of ethics. It is the society that ought to make a decision on what is ethical or not. Remember that the government was against freeing slaves. So no government, no companies, no organisations should define ethics and press/impose that on people. If they do it, it'll be just a CoC, a code of censorship. Revenge, punishment and 'cancel culture' are themselves unethical. It's a fascist programme. So we have to realise what these corporate tactics accomplish. Please do not be fooled by those tactics. Let us unite, together, and fight for every user’s freedom and every user’s rights.

Note: This has nothing to do with Stallman’s case. It is a completely different issue. All he did (or 'committed') was a thought crime. He did nothing wrong. Your 'thought police' punished him, in oder to destroy the software freedom movement, for your bosses' profit and power.

Appendix: Free software is not an ethical issue, it's a users' rights issue

Comment from yesterday: "It would be really nice to know the real facts about wtf is actually going on. It’s very clear that some external agents have infiltrated and targeted key people at the FSF and Torvalds himself. It would be even more interesting to understand what prevents them from getting rid of these infiltrates. What kind of pressure would for example convince the FSF that getting rid of Stallman is a better idea than just ignoring gossipy chit-chat?"

Recent Techrights' Posts

Richard Stallman and the Unix Philosophy
When asked about systemd people must remember that RMS speaks as an active Board member of the FSF and also the founder of the FSF
Get Rid of Back Doors, Don't Obsess Over Bounties and Other Corporate PR Stunts (or Needless Reboot Rituals)
Security as a term has mostly lost its meaning due to repeated misuse for many years
Serial Sloppers Are Killing the Web (They Probably Don't Care, Either)
Slop is a disease on the Web
IBM's Debt Ballooned by 8.5 Billion Dollars in Just 3 Months!
Hallmark of a company in a state of disarray, trying to spend its way out of trouble
Big Trouble in GNOME
even GNOME people admit the CoC went wrong
 
Microsoft is Shedding Off Loads of Staff and That Can be Dangerous Too
Working for Microsoft is a choice; nobody forces you to do it
The Cost (to Linux) of LLM Slop
Slop 'artists' like Fagioli are far from harmless
Links 25/04/2025: Ubisoft Spyware, Hegseth Fails at Tech on Every Level
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Food Forest Update and Facebook Destroying the Net
Links for the day
Streaming Apps Are “Investor Fraud” That Kills the Planet
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Things Get Increasingly Nasty at Microsoft Ahead of the Fake Results and May's Mass Layoffs Wave
They try to get people to 'resign' so that they won't count as layoffs and the company's 'wellbeing' will seem better
Slopping the Trough: Disney Plus Loses Billions and the Decline of Physical Media in America
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 24, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 24, 2025
Links 24/04/2025: GAFAM Problems and No Peace (or Ceasefire) in Sight
Links for the day
Slopfarms on the Web Almost Always Generate Anti-Linux FUD When They Produce "Linux" Output
Welcome to the dying Web
Richard Stallman's Oxford Talk Has Just Ended, Here Are Some Photos
he might hop over to another European country
Gemini Links 24/04/2025: Birthday and Good Work of Academia in Esotericism
Links for the day
Links 24/04/2025: EU fines Apple and Facebook, Another Microsoft GitHub Security Blunder
Links for the day
New Article Explains How the GPL Came About and WordPress Having Copyleft Obligations
Having been involved in the WordPress development community since almost the beginning, I know why it chose the GPL and how it restricts abuse by Automattic
IBM Gained Almost 6 Billion Dollars in "Goodwill" Value in Just 3 Months, According to IBM
Congrats to the management!
In Belarus, Yandex is Now Measured as 50 Times More 'Popular' (by Usage) Than Microsoft
Yandex continues to gain, whereas Bing cannot even register at 1%. Last month it was registered or measured at a measly 0.65%.
IBM Cannot Lie to Shareholders Anymore
"I would not be surprised if we see a layoff every quarter this year."
Dr Richard Stallman (RMS) Gives Talk in Oxford University in 4 Hours
If you live nearby, go there (it's free as in gratis)
Using a Law Firm's Licence to Exercise Politics Through Frivolous SLAPPs and Nastygrams (to Silence People, Remove Pages, Demand Fake or Forced 'Apologies')
Things must be getting really bad when lawyers act for raving antisemites
We're Working to Make Full-Site Search Available
This site has over 1,000 'wiki' pages, many thousands of documents, several thousands of videos, and about 50,000 blog posts or articles. We need to make them easier to find/navigate.
Links 24/04/2025: IBM Loses Many Contracts, Intel to Lay Off Over 20% (Not Counting Those Who Leave 'Voluntarily')
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Can Explain to Oxford Artificial Intelligence Society Why LLM Slop is Not Artificial Intelligence and Why It Hurts Society
another 'crop' of LLM slop that damages GNU/Linux and facts
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 23, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 23, 2025
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Promoting Microsoft and Proprietary Software Using Microsoft Operatives
Because nothing says "Open Source" like GPL violations facilitated by Microsoft
Another Site Bites the Dust: "Open Source For You" Becoming a Slopfarm (LLM Slop)
What a shame. Another dead site.
Links 23/04/2025: Crackdowns on Dissent, Palin Loses Libel Retrial Against New York Times
Links for the day
Links 23/04/2025: Hard Times and Digital Amnesia
Links for the day
The GNU/Linux Site Formerly Known as "linoxide.com" is Back... as an LLM Slopfarm!
Better for linoxide.com to go offline than to do this
Richard Stallman to Speak in Oxford University Exactly a Day From Now
outsourced to GAFAM
Links 23/04/2025: "Hiding Corruption" and "The Cost of Defunding Harvard"
Links for the day
Microsoft 'Studies' Again? Leon Musolff is Writing Papers With Microsoft.
Even if one can see/find a link to "the study" (in the Bezos-controlled publication), most people won't look any further and just take everything at face value.
Towards GNU World Domination
The FSF led by Geoffrey S. Knauth with his friend Richard Stallman in the FSF's Board [...] Let's encourage people to adopt GNU/Linux. There has never been a better time.
statCounter Helps Visualise Just How Deep in Trouble Microsoft is (Especially in Africa)
Microsoft sabotaged efforts to connect Africans and equip them with GNU/Linux laptops
The Register is Using Linux-Hostile Clickbait in Articles of Linux Proponents
Don't be a "whore" to advertisers, team El Reg
Microsoft Windows in Cyprus Lacking a Future
Most people access the Web there from mobile
Matrix Has a Severe Problem With Illegal Images
If Matrix cannot get the CP problem under control, many projects and people will dump Matrix
Never Try to Justify Strangulation of Women (Not in the US and Not in the UK)
Joint post by Mrs. Rianne Schestowitz and Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Links 23/04/2025: Tesla Profits Plunge 71%, Intel Ready to Lay Off 20% of Staff, Microsoft and IBM Layoffs
Links for the day
Microsoft's Most Profound Issue is That People Moved to 'Mobile' and "App Stores" (Microsoft's Presence There is Negligible)
Expect a wild ride for Microsoft this year
Google News is Amplifying FUD and Lies About Linux (and OpenSSH/SSH) by Promoting Slopfarms With Machine-Generated FUD and Slop Images
Google should know better
Gemini Links 23/04/2025: Librarians, Anubis, and Refactoring a Gemini Capsule
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 22, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 22, 2025