When I advise others who are considering switching to Linux, I speak mostly to the immediate benefits of using the stack: increased security, all of your software gets updated in one place, decreased boot times, and so forth. Yet, the most important reason for switching to an open source stack is grounded in ethics.

A few years ago I had a similar conversation with a friend. He was the first person to help me realize that choosing open source software wasn’t just good for your security — it was also the most ethical option. At first, I did not believe him. How could running open source software be the right choice out of all the computing options? After all, it wasn’t like people would live or die based on whether they put in the Windows, MacOS, or Linux install CD. However, after several conversations and a few more years, I too believe that choosing open source software is the most ethical option for two reasons:

1. The rapid rate at which general purpose computers have and will become integrated in all aspects of our every day life.
2. The benefit to the wider community that comes with knowledge sharing and collaboration.

My thoughts around general purpose computers are primarily inspired by Cory Doctorow’s “The Coming War on General Computation“, and his subsequent talk “The Coming Civil War Over General-purpose Computing“. The gist of his talks is this: We no longer live in a world of discrete mechanical appliances. We don’t ride in cars, we ride in computers with wheels. We don’t have ovens, we have computers that help heat our food. Access to the source code of these computers isn’t just good because we would gain a better understanding of how they work — it’s good because our lives depend on it. There’s an adage in the open source community to the effect that many eyes make all bugs visible. It doesn’t matter if you’re the best programmer on the planet; no one is as good as everyone. The more eyes that can be put on the code that our lives depend upon, the better.

The second important prong in Doctorow’s argument is that we need to have access not only to the source code, but we also need the ability to choose what software we can run on the devices we own. Imagine you take out a loan for a pacemaker. Ten years after you make your purchase, someone comes along with a better algorithm that helps you live longer. If someone chose to limit your ability to flash new firmware — whether it was due to some sort of profit incentive, or some sort of fear — your quality of life has been directly affected. All attempts to put limits on the types of applications you can run on your general-purpose computer converge on rootkits and malware. I don’t know about you, but I’m not fond of the idea of having a rootkit on my phone that can access the device’s data, sensors, cameras, and microphones to make sure that I’m only doing what the manufacturer intended.

So, to briefly reiterate my first point, open source software is the most ethical option because of the ways computers have and will become integrated in all aspects of our life. Without access to the source code, we put our privacy, lives, and the lives  of others in danger. Moreover, our lives and quality of life also depends on our ability to chose what software runs and is trusted on the devices we own.

My second ethical reason for the choice of open source software is, I think, the most obvious and thought of. When we expose and make free the code that runs on our computers, we invite others to learn from our knowledge and share alike, with the added benefit that we often get our software updates faster and with greater regularity. Just as no one person can spot all of the bugs in a program, no one person can create the most efficient program. Open source software allows us to select from a variety of diverse solutions that ultimately improve our quality of life, and provides us with the ability to modify that software to suit our needs. In a closed source world we depend on the manufacturer to make all of the right decisions and to anticipate all of the right design and security questions, which is a highly unreasonable request.

In the last few years there has been some really great cultural development based on the open source model applied to hardware. From 3-D printers you can make at home to Open Source Ecology, which aims to create plans for all of the tools needed to start a small modern civilization. These are incredibly exciting times.

The more we choose to share with others — whether that be our source code or our hardware — the more we will continue to benefit as a whole. The less we need to depend on proprietary software and hardware, the less brittle our standard of living and the standard of living for others becomes. This is why I believe open source software is the most ethical choice. I do not expect everyone who uses open source software to understand what is going on at a technical level, or submit bug reports or patches. The mere use of the software is a step in the right direction.

The feature image for this post is from Josef Albers, licensed under the CC here.