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Beyond being a good business case, Open Source has many direct and indirect benefits to society. Open Source has obvious pragmatic advantages for community development processes, most notably in its empowerment of users. But the ideological foundations and social/organizational structure of the free software movement are also consistent with community development at a theoretical level.
Here are some ethical reasons to choose Open Source software:
Free from Dependencies
Free software does not create dependencies on multinational corporations. Support commonly comes from user groups and online communities, which often provide vastly better support than commercial alternatives. Commercial support is available for free software systems, but users of free software can not be tied to single suppliers or vendors.
Shared Values
Most free software has been produced through decentralized, community-based development processes which are usually open to anyone with the right technical skills (or a willingness to learn) who is prepared to do the work. Users of free software can join software development communities and participate in the refinement and improvement of existing software, or in the development of entirely new programs, building on what already exists.
Education and Technology Transfer
Free software both encourages learning and experimentation and in turn benefits from it. Free software is widespread in educational institutions, since access to the source code makes free software an ideal tool for teaching: indeed much free software began as learning exercises. Due to low start-up costs and rapid change, software development and the information economy more generally offer a possible way for the South to build high value industries, leapfrogging older technologies and even modes of production. The flourishing Indian software industry provides an obvious example. But if these industries are built on proprietary products and protocols owned by multinational corporations, then this will only reinforce one-sided dependencies.
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