Can proprietary software be ethical?
The FSF has a definition for “ethical” and “non-ethical” proprietary software that I think confuses, as it is based in part on the idea of whether a device or product is “field programmable”. For example, some have concluded from this that perhaps proprietary software contained in ROM is ethical to write, while that delivered in eeprom is not. However, the choice between delivering a product with a fixed ROM, and eeprom, is often simply an economic one over which part number is used. Clearly there are no single rule that can define what is “ethical” and “unethical” software, and, further while we all agree what free software is, we have a range of opinions in the software community as a whole of what constitutes “proprietary” software, and when it is unethical. So I have considered looking at this question a little differently. For example, I am not of the belief it is automatically harmful for those who sell binary only proprietary software using traditional copyright protection, such
