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Ethical and Moral Considerations in Proprietary Software Usage

by Bradley M. Kühn<br>on June 2, 2026

In this philosophical essay, I explore the question: “When (if at<br>all) is it ethically and morally acceptable to use proprietary<br>software in the production and/or improvement of urgently needed<br>copylefted FOSS?”

The question presents a complex conundrum. I attempt herein to<br>rigoriously examine it through both a priori ethical analysis and a<br>posteriori (and folksy) consideration of my personal experience and the<br>shared experiences of the early software freedom movement.

I surprised myself at the outcome of my analysis. I conclude that<br>under some circumstances (of which we have already witnessed in<br>key historical examples), use of proprietary software by FOSS<br>contributors to create/improve FOSS becomes a moral imperative. And,<br>that imperitive often supersedes the moral imperative to avoid<br>using that proprietary software.

A Parable of Competing<br>Moral Imperatives

I grew up lower middle class in the USA — which is quite privileged<br>by global standards. As such, I never went hungry, but most meals did<br>not include second helpings. My family were early adopters of “extreme<br>couponing”. My earliest childhood memories are climbing through (on<br>Monday mornings) the gigantic bin of recycled Sunday newspapers behind<br>the grocery store. My job in this endeavor was “Sunday insert<br>extraction”. Back then, more than half of all households received the<br>Sunday paper. That Sunday insert was the goldmine. The insert paid for<br>the paper subscription (and much more) through its colorful 30-40-page<br>advertisements filled with coupons. Get your hands on 10–20 more of<br>those inserts freely from the recycle bin, and you could get<br>“Extreeeme!”.

The late 1970s and early 1980s were the wild west of extreme<br>couponing. There were nearly no restrictions on how many identical<br>coupons one shopper could use. A shopper could use 50¢-off coupons for<br>49¢ trial-sized products. I remember once my mother filled the entire<br>checkout belt with 30+ trial size dishwashing liquids — for which my<br>mother paid ≈65¢ (i.e., just the sales tax).

My young indoctrination to extreme couponing now feels as if it’s<br>part of my DNA. If you’re ever on on mute during a voice call with me<br>and I don’t reply quickly, it might be because I’m currently standing in<br>a grocery store aisle — comparing value per volume of different sizes<br>and cross-referencing that with a coupon’s fine print.

I actually miss having my hands covered in newspaper ink every Monday<br>— as that analog way was superior to digital. For much of my life, I<br>enjoyed “extreme couponing” as one of the few activities that put aside<br>my worries about the future of users’ software freedom, rights, and<br>privacy. Sadly, about ten years ago, everything started to change. Now,<br>using any coupon is a constant battle with proprietary, bait-and-switch<br>spyware.

Major grocery chains in the USA provide proprietary apps — now the<br>primary place providing coupons. Most chains have parallel websites that<br>allow account holders to “clip” them digitally. Printed ads still exist,<br>but are rife with phrases like “Digital Deal only”. Shoppers now collide<br>in the grocery aisles while navigating the Kafkaesque apps and websites<br>to figure out how to (virtually) clip a good coupon.

The once relaxing process of watching television on a Sunday<br>afternoon while clipping paper coupons slowly morphed into a two-hour<br>ordeal of figuring out the minimum proprietary Javascript required, then<br>building a text cross-list noting the discounts, screenshotting the<br>bigger discounts, and then using the list and screenshots to prove to<br>the grocery manager that I really was supposed to get $1-off of 4+<br>avocados this week. And, yes, I clipped it in the web browser. And, no,<br>I can’t install the app on this device to “check it in<br>the app”. 🙄

Most of my life, I couponed due to absolute financial necessity. I<br>can fortunately now afford to pay full price, but frugality is part of<br>my moral code. While the correct moral action for these grocery chains<br>is to simply reduce prices for all shoppers automatically, they<br>behave unethically. They prefer to use proprietary software to track<br>you, to attempt to manipulate you into buying items you don’t need, and<br>all the other obvious anti-features.<br>In response to their unethical affront to the public, I feel the moral<br>imperative to exploit that system by...