Mario Valori: Open Source, Closed Buffet

AI, Rome, and the consequences of trusting a timetable.

New year, new conferences — and, for the first time, Sapienza University of Rome, where I was due to say a few things about artificial intelligence, open source, and the Global South. Trenitalia had other plans. I arrived spectacularly late, missed the morning talks, and — more grievously — what reliable witnesses described as a sumptuous buffet of tramezzini and cold chicken. One cannot have everything in life.

Back home, or

into the footnotes?

Research summary - Constrained Openness: The AI Act, ethical licenses, and open-source sustainability between Europe and the Global South

Who gets to decide what counts as ‘open’ – and can openness remain financially sustainable? The European Union’s AI Act offers exemptions and lighter requirements for some free and open-source AI products, but the conditions attached to these benefits shape how openness is defined and practiced. The relationship between legal recognition, free access, and sustainable funding creates tensions for developers and communities, especially smaller actors and those outside major technology hubs. Regulations and licenses are more than technical rules: they influence who can build, maintain, share, and benefit from software.
‘Ethical’ licenses, such as RAIL and Hippocratic licenses, introduce another tension by restricting uses considered harmful. They offer a way to govern technology through the terms under which it is shared, yet they challenge a foundational principle of free and open-source software (FOSS): freedom to use it for any purpose. Their promise raises questions about both effectiveness and legitimacy. Can ethical restrictions prevent harm, including when the same technology supports beneficial and harmful uses? Who defines acceptable use, and whose values do those definitions reflect? Rules presented as universally ethical may reproduce colonial power relationships when they impose predetermined values on other communities.
Regulatory texts, guidance, license terms, real-world cases, and online open-source community discussions provide the basis for examining these tensions. Reading legal definitions alongside actual development and adoption practices helps map where formal openness conflicts with economic sustainability, and assess whether ethical clauses provide meaningful safeguards. It also helps identify “openwashing”: claims of openness that serve mainly as a badge of compliance. Particular attention goes to the Global South, where these choices have consequences in both directions. Communities may adopt European software carrying legal and ethical restrictions, while their own software may meet established FOSS criteria yet fail to qualify for open-source benefits under European rules. Together, these tensions reveal how competing definitions of openness can redistribute economic opportunity and the power to govern technology.