Today, preservation of free and open software faces new challenges from wildly differing forces. On the one hand, new and creative ways have entered the marketing place of ideas, recasting open source with a bias for profit while withholding software freedom. On the other hand a movement is forming making the case for social good and human benefit though software licensing – but in part by discriminating against software use, at odds with fundamental freedoms intended for the user.
What are the present threats? Are these in fact threats, or simply signs that the world is changing around the legacy of free and open source yet to evolve? Deb Bryant, recently appointed back to the Open Source Initiative Board, invites the audience to help shape needed civil discourse to bring our best ideas to refresh the role of free and open source software in society and sustain it while preserving those imperatives that have historically enabled it through several decades.
