"Or ti piaccia gradir la sua venuta: libertà va cercando, ch'è sì cara, come sa chi per lei vita rifiuta". -- Dante Alighieri, Divina Commedia, Purgatorio, Canto I
Note:Updated to include lock-in and tying. Some changes on moral rights to clarify that
Laws are more often than not an annoyance, despite their aim to improve the legal framework in any given field. Free Software (AKA "Open Source") has thrived despite the absence of any legal recognition by the law, if not in spite of rules that clearly are shaped around proprietary software. In many jurisdictions it has passed the enforceability test. So, no laws seem necessary to make it work. Yet, can some legal principle be put forward, and included in some laws, to help?
"If it works don't fix it", so goes the common saying. But if it works now doesn't mean it will work forever. It is nevertheless upon lawyers, and legislators alike, to foresee problems ahead of their actual happening, and brace for the potential harmful event. But any laws that would regulate Free Software would likely harm some parts of it, and change the games to favor one kind over another, or impose conditions that are not welcome or productive – something that legislator, even with the best intentions, often do – and in general could cause as many troubles as they would produce benefit. "Primum non nocere" is the paradigm for medical actions, even though drugs by definition only produce a net benefit by inflicting some limited damage. Is there a medicament that has entirely good effects without any negative ones? Arguably there is not. But with laws we can achieve something closer to this optimal benefit, which economists know as "Pareto Efficiency".
So this is a call for Pareto Efficient Laws, and Pareto optimal only laws.
Recently the Koss (Korean Open Source Software) group has organized the first Korean Free Software conference in Seoul, in cooperation with NIPA, the governmental agency for the promotion of Information Technology industry. FSFE contributed to the organization and I, as well as a few other people, have been invited to present our views at the conference.
My speech started like "I knew I should not come to teach, but to learn, and indeed my anticipation was correct". Korea seems to have a lot to teach us. They are coming from behind, but have covered great length, and show some impressive numbers of adoption. At least they have a strategy and an agenda by which public authorities shall adopt Free Software.
On November 17 I will fly over to Korea to attend and speak at what seems the largest Free Software event so far in the country, under the auspices of the Korean Government, through the National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA), and with the sponsoring also of the FSFE.
While the World (and I) was all concentrating on the departure of Steve Jobs, a man whose achievements have had an even greater impact on today's world is with us no more. Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie left us on 8 October 2011. It is sad, very sad, that all major press reported the two passing aways with so starkingly different emphasis. The C programming language is the foundation of all modern operating systems, and virtually of all commonly used applications and programming languages. But the reality distortion field is still on.
Dal 1 settembre è in vigore la Legge 27 luglio 2011, n. 128 "Nuova disciplina del prezzo dei libri" (G.U. n. 181 del 5 agosto 2011) la quale fissa uno sconto massimo del 15% sul prezzo di copertina dei libri, tranne alcune eccezioni (come quella dei libri usati o fuori catalogo). Una legge con tanti buchi, fatta da un legislatore ormai staccato dalla realtà.
La finalità della legge è
contribuire allo sviluppo del settore librario, al sostegno della creatività letteraria, alla promozione del libro e della lettura, alla diffusione della cultura, alla tutela del pluralismo dell'informazione
ma in realtà è una legge dannosa, che non favorisce la diffusione dei libri (da quando aumentare il prezzo e ridurre la concorrenza nella distribuzione favorisce l'accesso del pubblico a un bene?), ma soprattutto facilmente aggirabile.
