ETHICS

Who to hold responsible in the case of liability?
Throughout this case, we have seen numerous examples as to why computer scientists are ethically bound to produce software that is safe to the public. Computer programs can be highly unpredictable, and thorough testing is often the only way to gain confidence that a program is safe to use. But in the open source movement, where it is common, and indeed essential, to release software that is meant to be debugged by its users. As open source software becomes more commonly used, will users have a right to expect safety and stability? Is it acceptable for open source software to be forever labeled as "use at your own risk," or do users have a right to expect the same standards of safety and quality testing that is expected of proprietary software developers? When a vendor modifies an open source program and sells the modification, should they have to accept liability for the entire program, or just for the part that they themselves wrote? It is difficult to find a balance that will allow computer scientists working on open source projects to write safe, responsible programs without be required to try and anticipate every possible use of their code.

Should programming ideas be patented?
Many proponents of open source take the view that programming ideas are inherently different from other creative works and that software patents unfairly constrict the growth of the software industry and allow a few companies to gain monopoly power over ideas that should belong to the public domain. Many open source projects try to, as much as legally possible, replicate software that is developed and sold by proprietary software vendors. One well-known example of this is a project called WINE, for windows emulator, whose participants hope to eventually emulated Microsoft windows on the Linux platform. Proprietary software vendors look upon such practices of reverse engineering as theft of the ideas and hard work that went into their programs. Open source advocates counter that no corporation should be able to patent basic software design features. Determining who is right is a difficult question that requires a fair amount of understanding of the technical issues at hand, and in many ways our legal system has not yet caught up well enough to provide a definitive answer.

Is open source vulnerable to malicious penetration?
Many in the open source movement are concerned that the current practices of accepting contributions and bug fixes from relatively anonymous contributors leaves programs vulnerable to hidden back doors that might be exploited in the future. The nature of open source allows for many users to contribute to a body of code, and not all of them may be ethically responsible. Is the risk of releasing software with such vulnerabilities worth compromising contributors' privacy, an act that would almost certainly reduce the number of contributors and slow open source development? Does responsibility lie with program managers who should check contributions for backdoors, with individual contributors who should be held responsible for the code they submit, or with users who should have to accept such risks when they decide to use open source software?