3.
Promiskuitní teorie, puritánská praxe
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.
V roce 1997 byly tyto společné prvky vytaženy do Debian Free Software Guidelines, které se staly
definicí open-source.
Podle těchto pravidel, definovaných OSD, musí open-source licence chránit bezpodminečné právo jakékoli osoby modifikovat (a redistribuovat modifikované verze) open-source softwaru.
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.