https://words.steveklabnik.com/what-comes-after-open-source Software licences regulate distribution, but cannot regulate production. (technically they can, but practically, they can’t. I get into this below.) This is also the main challenge of whatever comes after open source; they cannot rely on the legal tactics of the last generation. I don’t have solutions here. [...] When developers talk about problems they see in open source, it’s often that there are production problems. Companies don’t “give back” money or developer hours. Programmers today don’t seem to be upset that, if they’ve developed any proprietary extensions to their open source software, that those extensions are not shared back with the community. They care that the production process is impeded by additional pressure, without providing resources. If a company were to add a proprietary feature to an open source project, yet pays five employees to develop the open source part further, the FSF sees this as a tragedy. The commons has not been enriched. The new generation of open source developers sees this as a responsible company that thankfully is contributing to the development of something they use and care about. Software licenses can only restrict what people can do when they distribute the source code, and that’s it. It cannot force someone to have a bug tracker, or a code of conduct, or accept your patch. Copyleft can force an absolute minimal “contribution” back to your project, but it can’t force a good-faith one. This makes it an inadequate tool towards building something with the kinds of values that many developers care about. [...] Earlier, I said that you can’t use licenses to regulate production, and that’s technically not true. For example, say that I own a brand, like McDonalds. I own the intellectual property surrounding that brand. I can licence that intellectual property to others, contingent on them producing hamburgers (and whatever else) in a certain way, according to my specification. This doesn’t really work with the way that open source is set up. The entities are in reverse here; it’s the software developers that want to be able to dictate things, but it’s the project that sets the license terms. [...] I’m still, ultimately, left with more questions than answers. But I do think I’ve properly identified the problem: many developers conceive of software freedom as something larger than purely a license that kinds in on redistribution. This is the new frontier for those who are thinking about furthering the goals of the free software and open source movements. ____ L'articolo è a tratti superficiale e si fonda su assuzioni ed osservazioni discutibili, ma ha l'enorme merito di porre una domanda che viola un tabù: cosa viene dopo l'open source? Per quanto ammiravole sia l'onestà intellettuale in conclusione, l'assenza di risposte deriva dalla scelta delle domande sbagliate. E se ci chiedessimo invece cosa viene dopo il software libero? Come rendiamo concretamente fruibili le libertà promosse dal software libero a tutti gli abitanti di questo pianeta? Quali strumenti legali, culturali e tecnici possono mettere tutti in condizione di scrivere e modificare il proprio software? Giacomo