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3. Promiscuous Theory, Puritan Practice

3. Promiskuitní teorie, puritánská praxe

Through all these changes, nevertheless, there remained a broad consensus theory of what `free software' or `open source' is. The clearest expression of this common theory can be found in the various open-source licenses, all of which have crucial common elements. Nicméně přes všechny tyto změny zůstal široký konsensus, co to vlastně "free software" nebo "open source" je. Nejjasnější vyjádření této obecné teorie může být nalezeno v různých "open-source" licencích, z nichž všechny mají zásadní společné prvky.
In 1997 these common elements were distilled into the Debian Free Software Guidelines, which became the Open Source Definition. Under the guidelines defined by the OSD, an open-source license must protect an unconditional right of any party to modify (and redistribute modified versions of) open-source software. V roce 1997 byly tyto společné prvky vytaženy do Debian Free Software Guidelines, které se stalydefinicí open-source. Podle těchto pravidel, definovaných OSD, musí open-source licence chránit bezpodminečné právo jakékoli osoby modifikovat (a redistribuovat modifikované verze) open-source softwaru.
Thus, the implicit theory of the OSD (and OSD-conformant licenses such as the GPL, the BSD license, and Perl's Artistic License) is that anyone can hack anything. Nothing prevents half a dozen different people from taking any given open-source product (such as, say the Free Software Foundations's gcc C compiler), duplicating the sources, running off with them in different evolutionary directions, but all claiming to be the product. Tudíž, implicitní teorie OSD (a licencí konformních s OSD, jako např. GPL, BSD či Perl's Artistic License ) je, že každý může hackovat cokoli. Nic nebrání půltuctu různých lidí
In practice, however, such `forking' almost never happens. Splits in major projects have been rare, and always accompanied by re-labeling and a large volume of public self-justification. It is clear that, in such cases as the GNU Emacs/XEmacs split, or the gcc/egcs split, or the various fissionings of the BSD splinter groups, that the splitters felt they were going against a fairly powerful community norm.
In fact (and in contradiction to the anyone-can-hack-anything consensus theory) the open-source culture has an elaborate but largely unadmitted set of ownership customs. These customs regulate who can modify software, the circumstances under which it can be modified, and (especially) who has the right to redistribute modified versions back to the community.
The taboos of a culture throw its norms into sharp relief. Therefore, it will be useful later on if we summarize some important ones here.
  • There is strong social pressure against forking projects. It does not happen except under plea of dire necessity, with much public self-justification, and with a renaming.
  • Distributing changes to a project without the cooperation of the moderators is frowned upon, except in special cases like essentially trivial porting fixes.
  • Removing a person's name from a project history, credits or maintainer list is absolutely not done without the person's explicit consent.
In the remainder of this paper, we shall examine these taboos and ownership customs in detail. We shall inquire not only into how they function but what they reveal about the underlying social dynamics and incentive structures of the open-source community.

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