It is a mistake to describe the free software community, or any human community, as an “ecosystem,” because that
word implies the absence of ethical judgment.
The term “ecosystem” implicitly suggests an attitude of nonjudgmental observation: don't ask how what should happen, just study and explain what does happen. In an ecosystem, some organisms consume other organisms. We do not ask whether it is fair for an owl to eat a mouse or for a mouse to eat a plant, see more we only observe that they do so. Species' populations grow or shrink according to the conditions; this is neither right nor wrong, merely an ecological phenomenon.
By contrast, beings that adopt an ethical stance towards their surroundings can decide to preserve things that, on their own, might vanish—such as civil society, democracy, human rights, peace, public health, clean air and water, endangered species, traditional arts…and computer users' freedom.
When the term is considered, it brings new light to some of the thinking. or does it?
It is a mistake to describe the free software community, or any human community, as an “ecosystem,” because that
word implies the absence of ethical judgment.
The term “ecosystem” implicitly suggests an attitude of nonjudgmental observation: don't ask how what should happen, just study and explain what does happen. In an ecosystem, some organisms consume other organisms. We do not ask whether it is fair for an owl to eat a mouse or for a mouse to eat a plant, see more