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• Tweets that mention Is it kosher to make OpenSource software? - KosherDev -- Topsy.com | ‍‍Nov 22, 2009 - 6 Kislev 5770 at 6:02 pm

  

  [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by chokha, open source. open source said: Is it kosher to make OpenSource software? – KosherDev: To write this post I was inspired by this e-mail thread. It is re http://url4.eu/o7kE [...]

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• bahaltener | ‍‍Nov 22, 2009 - 6 Kislev 5770 at 6:33 pm

  

  I agree with Stallman on the values of free software and open source, though I find the approach of licenses like MPL, CDDL, EPL etc. to be more free than GPL which is in a sense more restrictive for some higher goals.

  Ideas of open source have strong parallels in Halocho. For example according to many poyskim there is no such thing as “intellectual property” in Jewish law. And divrey Toyro don’t belong to anyone as an object. They should be free for all.

  On the other hand, laws of hasogas gvul have nothing to do with the issue of patenting and inellectual property (which DRM policies are obsessed with. See a very good article about DRM: http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Linux-and-Digital-Rights-Management-DRM-746607.html ). Hasogas gvul is a moral law regarding not stealing source of livelihood from others. I don’t see any contradiction in this law to the approach of open source technologies. Having an open source license doesn’t not imply that it is proper to steal someone else’s livelihood. However there are known precedents when companies used open source to hurt their competitors. This is a foul play IMHO. But it’s not in essence a problem of open source. It’s a problem of low morale of people who might use it, and it’s very possible to hurt others with closed source methods too.

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• bahaltener | ‍‍Nov 22, 2009 - 6 Kislev 5770 at 6:54 pm

  

  For example project http://hebrewbooks.org is open source in a sense. They publish Toyro materials and make them available free for all, and people can contribute to it. While for example http://otzar.biz/ is not open source and wants money for reading (while they can’t possible own the content anyhow). I respect the first, and find the second to be obtrusive and not serving the purpose of spreading the Toyro knowledge.

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• Jonathan | ‍‍Nov 23, 2009 - 6 Kislev 5770 at 12:37 am

  

  Hi,

  I thought of a different Halakhaic problem, the fact that some open sourced apps are developed on Sabbath. Actually, I never thought of the other religious implications here. As far as I know, the Halakha relates slightly to Intellectual Property and money, but the Talmud was open sourced the same problem.

  J.

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• Ely Levy | ‍‍Nov 23, 2009 - 6 Kislev 5770 at 2:27 am

  

  Your example is wrong, there are a lot of places that have more than one beit keneset. The example is the gmara is about opening two stores one infront of the other. Note that they are talking not on the market where everyone compete. Also there is the question if someone is allowed to offer lower prices and the answer is not only yes but he shall be blessed.
  So opensource can be treated in two ways: 1) It’s a business model therefore you are allowed to compete such as any two stores in the market. 2) It’s helping out, again you are allowed to help someone out for free even if there are people who do it for money.

  Beside that, if you think about it for a moment, who said you are allowed to sell software at all? In a few places in the gamara is says that EULA is not valid (For example in the case where one rabbi “buys” a medicine knowledge from a woman, swore to her not to revel it to anyone and says it in the yeshiva a day after). What sort of kinian is it?
  Another place in the gmara is says about a few people who didn’t share their knowledge “And the name of evil one shall rute” Even that those people got various good reasons for not doing so. I can also quote quite a few places that from them it seems you are not allowed to have copyrights on Alacha books at all. (Like I taught it for free so you shall teach it for free).

  *Done complaining for now*

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• Moishe Beshkin | ‍‍Nov 23, 2009 - 6 Kislev 5770 at 3:01 am

  

  Jonathan,
  There is no problem to use open-source, even developed on Sabbath or a Great Holiday. We can use it in ordinary day if the developer is non-Jewish. He is free to act on his own on any day of week. The problem appears in case the developer is Jewish. Most rabbis say that no Jew can use the result of work, done on Sabbath. But still there are nuances on this. So, to be on a safe side, we should look the sources to find out if a Jew developed any part on Sabbath or not

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• Moishe Beshkin | ‍‍Nov 23, 2009 - 6 Kislev 5770 at 3:31 am

  

  Ely Levy,
  Thanks for a great explanation.
  I come to conclusion that Jewish Internet should be treated as a really small street in global village. So, I see a kind of problem with opening program development on the same street.
  If we pay for a program, which helps to convert Jewish calendar to ordinary and vice versa, we do not pay for calendar itself, but for a tool. The tool in this case is not the subject of intellectual property, but the result of working time of programmer. It is similar to Gamara books – we do not pay for Gamara text, but for the paper, hardcover and printing.

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• Moishe Beshkin | ‍‍Nov 23, 2009 - 6 Kislev 5770 at 4:35 am

  

  bahaltener,
  As I answered to Ely Levy, in this case you pay not for information, but for a mean to get information.

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• Moishe Beshkin | ‍‍Nov 23, 2009 - 6 Kislev 5770 at 4:39 am

  

  bahaltener,

  However there are known precedents when companies used open source to hurt their competitors. This is a foul play IMHO. But it’s not in essence a problem of open source. It’s a problem of low morale of people who might use it, and it’s very possible to hurt others with closed source methods too.

  It is about the same problem as with Communism, once there might appear a situation, when people might want to use better opportunities in obtaining some other aims.
  If everything will be given for free, people might stop developing, because there is no more need to develop – you have everything for free.

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• Amir E. Aharoni | ‍‍Nov 23, 2009 - 7 Kislev 5770 at 10:05 am

  

  > Me personally, I don’t see any problem with earning money for programming (I cannot agree with Stallman to free absolutely all software).

  Stallman also doesn’t see any problem with earning money for programming. He very clearly supports making money out of Free Software. See the essays Words to Avoid and Selling Free Software. You may be confusing the meanings of “free” here.

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• Ethan | ‍‍Nov 23, 2009 - 7 Kislev 5770 at 11:22 am

  

  In response to the topic of this post, I think that developing software, and offering its source code along with the software itself, is not only kosher, but even a mitzva. By doing so, you are allowing people to take your work and make it better, better adept to their needs, and solve problems for a larger community.
  It’s like making chicken soup, and offering along the recipe. Your soup might not be perfect for everyone (because it may have Kitniyot and its passover), but once others know how to make it, they can modify it and make it suit a wider range of situations.

  As for foul competition – seeing how your competitor can also release his code for free, there’s nothing unfair about it. On the contrary – if he can’t compete with software developed by others, he should get out of the business. Would it be wrong to be printing books with modern day printers because it will harm the business of the guy still using a printing press? If you have a technological edge, there’s nothing wrong with using it – it’s better for the overall market.

  Your argument about a free alternative to Kaluach has nothing to do with the license under which the software is distributed. This isn’t a matter of GPL vs. BSD. vs. Apache. This is a matter of 10$ vs. 5$ vs. 0$. And on this point too – if a developer feels it’s worth his while to develop software and distribute it for free, where’s the problem? seems to me like Kaluach were enjoying a monopoly, but there’s no moral obligation to preserve those. Moreover – with free software (especially if it’s free as in speech in addition to as in Manischewitz), it makes it possible for smaller, poorer communities to enjoy benefits that were till now reserved only to richer ones.

  So giving your code can be construed as a form of tzedaka, too!

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• Moishe Beshkin | ‍‍Nov 23, 2009 - 7 Kislev 5770 at 12:38 pm

  

  Ethan,
  hope that you understand me correctly. I am not against open-source software. If i were, there will be no this blog.
  I want to understand if open-source is agains halakha, or not.

  Anyway, thanks for reaction.

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• Moishe Beshkin | ‍‍Nov 23, 2009 - 7 Kislev 5770 at 12:39 pm

  

  Amir,
  thanks, will check the links as soon as will find some time. Hope it will be soon.

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• KosherJava | ‍‍Nov 23, 2009 - 7 Kislev 5770 at 2:27 pm

  

  Interesting discussion. I doubt that there would be any hasagas gevul issue here. Here is a relevant links via Google: Halachah and Copyright Laws by Rabbi Chaim Jachter.

  What I would like to know is if anyone ever tried to enforcing the GPL through a Din Torah in Bais Din.

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• Moishe Beshkin | ‍‍Nov 23, 2009 - 7 Kislev 5770 at 3:20 pm

  

  Thanks, also interesting reading.
  To note:

  when there are no Jewish courts to legislate rules for an effective society (8), the civil
  government’s laws to maintain order must be followed

  So, it seems till Beis Din will not make a legislation on copyright, then we should obey civil law.

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• bahaltener | ‍‍Nov 23, 2009 - 7 Kislev 5770 at 6:46 pm

  

  KosherJava: Interesting article. The bottom line is, it’s mostly the issue of dino demalchuso dino, and hasogas gvul. The concept of intellectual property is more than fuzzy in Halocho. This is pretty parallel to the open source ideas. I.e. the value of software should be free and the approach to it should be without patenting etc. But since counties enforce copyright laws, they can be used to implement these open source ideas. I.e. while open source hackers don’t really agree to prohibitive copyrighting, they use these very laws to enforce openness

  Regarding hasogas gvul – I don’t think it applies to cases like Kaluch, or for example proprietary and extremely expensive (because of monopoly basically) OCR programs for sofrim and etc. I.e. in these cases fare competition is legitimate.

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• Ira | ‍‍Dec 21, 2009 - 4 Teves 5770 at 1:19 am

  

  Arriving a little late to the party, but allow me to give my two Zuzim

  First off, as people here said, the GPL’s concept is not about the abolishing of material profits, but the preservation of USER rights. In other words, R. Stallman basically says ‘Shlakh lakhmekha al pney hamayim’ (excuse my Israeli accent…).

  The basic thing you need to see here is that the FSF does not see software as a product but as a service. after all the amount of effort put into development is well worthy of payment, but how can you justify charging for the copying of the resulting work when it essentially costs nothing to do so?

  Think about it like hiring a lawyer to draw you a contract – once the contract is in your hand, and you’ve paid him for his time, why should you not be able to photocopy it? Edit it? Even give it to another lawyer to fix it up if you can’t do it yourself?

  Also, Stallman is not for the unlawful abuse of other people’s property rights, be they physical or intellectual. He simply offers his own software released with his approach and advocates you try to replace as many components of your system with free ones, improve on the ones you find laying out there on the net and help your friends and fellow netizens. Indeed the idea here is to promote cooperation, and inter-reliance. Helping others because they help you back, and not ONLY for the money.

  He explains his views first hardend into a manifesto when he saw software arrive without source, and source given to his colleagues only under an NDA. He felt very saddened that they were forced to sign a document that basically says they promise not to help their friends and community. This is where the GNU Manifesto takes form.

  So if you ask an epikoyrus like myself, it sure sounds like the better thing to do not only by moral codes of secular humanism, but of Judaism as well. Mitzvah or not, eh?

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• Ira | ‍‍Dec 21, 2009 - 4 Teves 5770 at 1:32 am

  

  oh yeah, two more things…

  First, Hasagas Gevul it is not, because the programmer selected the GPL as a clear way of saying the user IS Free to use the product in any way they want. It’s just a different business model.

  Second, Moishe: Can you give examples of FOSS used to hurt the competition?!

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  • Moishe Beshkin | ‍‍Dec 21, 2009 - 4 Teves 5770 at 3:06 am

    

    Ira,
    First I’d like to thank you for a such interesting input on topic.

    I see a problem not in hurting competition, but in competition with no price for work. It sounds like little bit unfair towards those, who earn money by this.

    One of the biggest problems, to my mind, is that FOSS is following big software developers, but not leading, not innovating. Sure, there are some spheres, where FOSS leads without any problems (Apache, OpenSSL etc), but first it was just a replica of an idea, already implemented. So, it looks like opening another bakery on the same street and giving bread for free.

    As I said before, I am not struggling against OpenSource, even more – I stand for it. But I have some doubts and thoughts on ideology and I am looking for clear vision, that nothing wrong with it from point of view of my moral principles.

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• Ira | ‍‍Dec 22, 2009 - 6 Teves 5770 at 12:55 pm

  

  Like I said, it’s a different business model. if you are working with just volunteers, some products will end up looking like a free replacement and others like completely original work. you may think Mozilla Firefox is an imitation of Explorer but it did precede it. Gnome is not an imitation of KDE, more than KDE an imitation of windows which in turn is an initation of OS/2, which is in turn an imitation of the Mac, which is in turn an imitation of the Xerox desktop of the seventies (skipped many more Desktop oriented GUIs like the Amiga). You simply can’t really put a finger on who is the original inventor when the idea has become ubiquitous and the different implementations all have different features. Also, who is to say if the original is anywhere close to being the best? Should innovation be halted because of legal loopholes that abuse patent laws to protect software?

  I can think up quite a few cases where an obviously bad Psak Halacha could not be undone, and people suffer. A later generation Posek then gives some sort of a reinterpretation to the Psak, that adds an “obvious” small exception or some other “insight” into the older Posek’s words that practically cancels the first Psak. Ridiculous? To me yes, but imagine if you could not change or interpret any such Psak once the older Posek dies or just refuses to discuss it, and that ALL the Halakhot were law, could you live your life in such a situation? That’s the outcome of Proprietary software. This is why you are allowed to choose, to think, to ignore a few rules if you find they keep you away from what’s important to you and to your community.

  At this point I’ll just say that if I continue to develop this analogy it will become a messy argument against religion, so I’d better stay on the topic

  So back to Free Software: Greasemonkey, rsync, ssh, pgp, ReiserFS and a few thousand other products, libraries and algorithms that were born in an open source or Free source environment – were all created out of necessity or academic interest. Some give Samba as an example for an unlawful project, but Samba was created for interoperability, not necessarily to compete against NT (and it doesn’t). More often than not, you’ll see that people are simply left with no choice but reimplement a tool and reinvent wheels to get something to work the way they want it.

  The long and expensive PR campaign of Microsoft’s gang left the world believing that software can only be created and used as a product, that “fair use” is for anarchists, and that the same laws that were drawn for atoms can be applied to (or indeed enforced on) binary bits. In the meantime people seem to forget that Microsoft rarely ever sold a single product to a client, I can think of 3 or maybe 4. Most of what MS has done in ~35 years of existence is sell licences, i.e. contracts, and in them they included many limitations and impositions that are probably going against quite a few laws in the many countries they do business in. I know the MS EULA includes parts that will not hold water in an Israeli court, and there are others that are probably not even enforceable in the USA. Is that greed seen as a good thing by any Jewish laws? I am pretty sure the entire capitalist system’s state today goes against one or two of the “7 deadly sins” of Christianity as well

  But let’s get back to the bakery across the street. What if that baker barters with the community to provide him with the flour, energy for his oven and food for his family, is it still bad that he gives them “free” bread? And what about selling better bread for the same price as the other guy? Or maybe he’s selling at half the price because the other guy is hiking his prices and selling at a 90% profit margin? Surely free competition is a right…

  And if he has a “magic box” that produces endless loafs of bread, should he be outlawed for using it for the good of the community? Well, here again is what I meant about Atoms and bits not really being the same thing.

  Free Software programmers and inventors DO get paid. Maybe not always directly and almost never proportionally to their work’s installation numbers, but there are many other ways to earn a living from it, such as selling maintenance contracts, consultations, customizations, faster fixing of bugs, even getting discovered by an employer and getting a job offer. Other reasons why people do it is to get practice at certain types of applications/tools/languages/frameworks so you can find a new job, etc.

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  • Moishe Beshkin | ‍‍Dec 23, 2009 - 7 Teves 5770 at 2:22 pm

    

    Ira, I am afraid, that there appeared a sort of misunderstanding between us. I still declare that i am not against OpenSource. What I wanted to obtain by initiating this discussion is to understand that no legislation is violated by opensource – nor civil, neither Jewish religious.
    It is clear that civil law is not violated, due to several court decisions and existing practice.
    Talking about Jewish law, it is not that fully clear for me.

    I really appreciate your opinion and consider it very useful for me. Your comment is good food for mind to think further. So, I think I will compile some new ideas in future topic and we’ll talk about it more.

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    • Oded | ‍‍Dec 23, 2009 - 7 Teves 5770 at 6:49 pm

      

      After discussing it with some people (who are better at pilpul then me), the conclusion is that Hasagas Gevul has nothing to do with Open Source software, or with competition at all: Hasagas Gevul does not allow you to treat customers as as fishes in the sea that have no right to choose for themselves.

      Consider for example two companies who produces competing products – lets say cars, for example. Now company A comes out with a huge advertisement campaign for their car. One might argue that if company B now goes out and tries to sell their car – maybe for a lower price – is performing Hasagas Gevul. But the fact of the matter is that as a thinking individual I’m allowed to choose for myself which product I want to use at any given time. As it is said “All is foreseen, and freedom of choice is granted” (Pirkey Avot 3, somewhere).

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      • Moishe Beshkin | ‍‍Dec 24, 2009 - 7 Teves 5770 at 1:00 am

        

        Oded,
        thank you for a great comment and example.
        Actually you repeated the words of my rabbi, who said that every case of possible Hasagas Gevul should be considered from two positions – fair competition and profit of customers. So, in case if fair competition fails, but customers will obtain better service for a lower price, then it is allowed without any problems.

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• oron | ‍‍Dec 23, 2009 - 7 Teves 5770 at 4:08 pm

  

  Let us check some facts:
  1. A big software company, convicted many times for breaking the civil law in the US:
  * Is it legal to buy their software?

  2. This company definitely employ Jews both in Israel and the US. Some of them work (occasionally) on Sabbath (maybe only on the US, maybe only the non-observant ones, not sure)
  * Is it Kosher to buy software from them?
  * Since using their software involves money (license fees), does it makes it a bigger sin?

  3. The same company used the same unlawful tactics to force other companies out of the market. Among them were many companies producing software in the Holy Land, using our Holy Language (QText, Einstein, Dagesh…)
  * What is your opinion? Are these acts more illegal from a Jewish point of view or from a civil point of view?

  Just asking…

  [yes, I am sarcastic if anyone missed that until now]

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  • Moishe Beshkin | ‍‍Dec 23, 2009 - 7 Teves 5770 at 4:45 pm

    

    Oron,
    I wrote a separate topic on this issue
    http://kosherdev.com/2009/12/is-it-kosher-to-buy-software-developed-in-non-kosher-way/

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• Is it kosher to buy software developed in non-kosher way? - KosherDev | ‍‍Dec 23, 2009 - 7 Teves 5770 at 4:42 pm

  

  [...] decided to make a separate post on topic, which came from questions asked by Oron here. 1. A big software company, convicted many times for breaking the civil law in the US: * Is it [...]

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• Ira | ‍‍Dec 24, 2009 - 7 Teves 5770 at 6:46 am

  

  Shalom again, Moishe.

  I didn’t think for a minute that you were against FOSS personally, but I felt you had doubts regarding the ethics and motivations of the Free Software movement, which is why I stepped in to squash those. More on that in the links sent on Nov. 23 above by Amir Aharoni.

  Also, I’m not writing it just for you personally, this is also for your other readers that may not be aware of this background, since it has indeed been a little overshadowed in the wake of the “linux vs. MS wars” the media likes to fabricate.

  What I wanted to correct is the misunderstandings that the FSF is in some way against money or property rights, or that it’s out to get corporations for some political agenda.

  The two messages you can basically take from their manifesto are:
  1. “Think of coding as a commercial service rather than think of the compiled program as a a commercial product”
  2. “In addition to protecting your rights, please protect the rights of the users”

  Our community thinks it is essential that ideas and community take precedence over capital gain, because in the long run it’s the people, culture and ideas that count. Free competition is an excellent tool to promote growth in capital as well as knowledge, but not to the point it tramples personal freedom and advancements in science and ethics.

  So when Stallman sat to consider balancing the rights of the owner against such important moral issues of cooperation and idea proliferation and improvement, he got to write the GPL. Some people get where he was coming from, others try to abuse it.

  Because here’s the problem – to preserve people’s freedom of software, which the FSF considers to be as important as human rights in this day and age, they created a tool called “open source licensing”, which is useful to protect SOME of the ideals of the Freedom of Software in writing. However it’s not meant to be complete solution, nor does it protect all the rights and ideals, it’s JUST A TOOL. The same way that “elections” or “separation of branches” are some of the tools used to preserve democracy, but they can’t guarantee it.

  So while it’s true that some companies try to be “loss leaders” and give away some bread for free (gratis) as a mean to kill off the competition, and some even tried to be even more competitive and fight free with Free (libre), it was absolutely not the intention of the FSF.

  The funny thing is that even inside the community, people had to get to that realisation the hard way, and the best example is the Linux kernel itself: Linus Torvalds was always a practical guy, a good programmer but infamously full of hubris. When looking for a version control system he went against the suggestions of the masses and picked a proprietary product that happily hosted the source control for a while, until things hit some limits, and he understood that the lack of access to the system’s code and hosting resources meant he needs a new system. This time he did the correct thing and decided to pick out a FOSS tool rather than give in to another vendor that would have locked the project in a new way. He went a few steps further and wrote that new tool himself, called “git”, and the rest is history.

  I hope this wraps it up regarding “ideology”, which is the real plane on which you need to check it against Halakha. The small details of the licenses and the way they are used and abused by individuals are as immaterial to the subject of this post, such arguments about “kutzo shel yod” like the financial outcome of the abuse of a license or FOSS product.

  The reason I am zealous about this is because such arguments seem to pop up too often in the public life here in Israel. A few months ago many israelis were appalled to hear about a Haredi father who’s son’s life were saved due to donated organs, but declared in front of the dead boy’s father that the tora forbids his community to be donors themselves. In another case I remember a story about a volunteer in “Magen David Adom” who would ride ambulances on Shabbat to save the life of a Jew but not that of a gentile. So as you can imagine it’s annoying enough when any moral system clashes with my ideas of right and wrong, let alone my own ancestral one. Sadly I can’t really have a say when it’s about huge, deep concepts of life and death, but when it comes to judge other things that are dear to me, I can’t feel comfortable saying nothing.

  So if I came a little too strong, I hope you can forgive It’s possible I’ve overdone it. But it was a small effort to show where Halakha can go naturally with my humanistic world view rather than against it. I try to help people take a step back, see the bigger picture and remember that in the not-so-distant past, Judaism used to be a lot more progressive, liberal and humanistic than some factions have taken it lately.

  Seperately, I haven’t had the time yet to read R. Jachter’s paper on IP and the Halakha, but I hope to get to it too

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• אסכולת הכורסא » אוי לעיניים | ‍‍Jan 5, 2010 - 20 Teves 5770 at 4:23 pm

  

  [...] האם לפי ההלכה היהודית תוכנה חופשית איננה מוסרית? אבסורד, אבל מתוך הדיון אפשר לרגע לחשוב שמישהו באמת תופס אותה ככזו. מטריד. [...]

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