This article covers an analysis of the bills presented before the Republic of Colombia Congress as efforts to regulate free software in the country, which were not successful in their legislative process. It analyzes whether the transits generated in the legislative proposals and the reasons why they were not approved, emphasizing the position of groups that defend free software. Therefore, a revision of legislative documents published in the Colombian official media was proposed, taking into account the approach of several actors involved in controversies from a virtual ethnography perspective, in which virtual spaces are included as a mechanism to understand the dynamics between the actors involved in the debate. In the end, it is affirmed that the failure of free software bills in Colombia highlights the interests of dominant groups that establish influential alliances in the course of technological regulation, in addition to a technological discourse with market interests.
Keywords:
Free Software; Technological Legislation; Virtual Ethnography; Software Regulation