is there any vice in free code?
The best advice I can offer is to go read the thread at Professor Lessig’s blog and the ones he links to (no cheating: you have to follow the thread yourself).
That leads to a second reason to oppose open or free software — that it would destroy or change the software-writing business. This seems to be Park’s concern: If everyone expects code to be free, then the ability of certain sorts to get paid for writing code is threatened. Not all coders, but some. The people who would get paid for writing software would be the people who sold devices (e.g., Apple); the ability of independent sorts to write and sell software would in turn then be weakened.
I don’t buy this argument. Just because I have the source code doesn’t make me a programmer any more than owning a hammer makes me a carpenter. I see some disruption in the ecosystem if *all* source were made available in an unencumbered way, but even then, not everyone could use it effectively.
The device makers — Apple, et al — who created or expanded markets for the products based on that code would benefit or at least continue to exist, but I think programmers whose work was of sufficiently high quality would continue to make a living thru programming. Perhaps thru licenses to the device makers, perhaps thru some payment scheme analogous to the micropayments we’ve been promised since 1995 . . . . .