Ethical Issue: Open-Source Softwares

Thoughtful Questions:

1) There are several common examples of open-source software that many people use in their everyday lives. Can you name any?

- Linux : Operating System

- Google Chrome OS : Lightweight operating system based around the web browser.

- Android smart-phone operating system. 

These are all familiar names that we ever heard.  They are pretty common.

2) Do you believe that the quality of an open-source software product is likely to be higher or lower than the quality of software produced by a large corporation? How do you think technical support for open-source software compares to that for proprietary software?

-I believed that, the quality of an open-source software product is likely to be lower than than the quality of software produced by a large corporation. Because, the reason why the "original" product is being sell out on the market with some expensive price (software such Microsoft Office) it might cost something thousands; is because that, programmer actually spent a lot of time writing the codes and making this product up. And it is not just one person, its a large professional corporation that made it together. And because it is professional and it is good enough to sell it with price, that software and its quality must be good enough and worth to buy. So by looking at this we can imagine the quality of the open-source software product, it wouldn't be too good. First of all, people could edit it and make changes with the coding from the original, but how do you know that the person that is giving you this free software that he or she just made changes is just a good programmer or not? And since they know that it is not as good as the original that's made by a large corporation, they then feel ok to give out people for free. 

3) Daniel Bricklin, biography appears in Chapter 12, did not patent (or copyright) his software, believing that software should not be proprietary. As a result, he lost a great deal of money in the form of possible royalties. Do you consider his actions to be visionary or naive?

-I think is naive, because he didn't copyright his software and didn't think of the consequences of believing that the software should not be proprietary which is losing a great deal of money. He could have at least have an idea of believing that the software should not be proprietary BUT it is ok for others to have only IF they copyright the software to the owner. 

4) The Free Software Foundation is a tax-exempt charity that raises funds for work on the GNU Project. GNU software is free. Go to the Web and read about its philosophy. Compare GNU products with those of manufacturers such as Microsoft and Sun. 

-Obviously it is different already when you see the name. GNU is a free software foundation that raises funds for work on the GNU project but Microsoft software needed to be paid in order to have the software and they are not made for funds like GNU software. 

5) If you were to continue with computing and become a programmer, which side of the argument would you take: Should software be copy-righted or should it be free?

- I would take soft wear be copy-righted. Because the reason why a software is sell it with price is because it worth that price. Imagine an engineer sitting in font of the computer, typing codes again and again, input as many possible values as possible (basically testing) and they ended up giving out the codings for nothing. In the person who actually "write the codes"'s view, I would just say no, they need to copyright my softwares and my work that I've done for long time. But in a general people's point of view. Sometimes when a software is not free, I wouldn't want to go actually buy them, I will just download it. But in this question is talking about "become a programmer" so my answer is "it should be copy-right".