For many years we have been talking about free software and open technologies and the various ethical, philosophical, legal and economic aspects connected to this particular way of approaching information technology. Often the importance of being able to have software tools that were distributed in a mode free from the traditional constraints of industrial property has been emphasized and the message now seems to have arrived even to the big players in the ICT sector. What not everyone knows (or who find it more convenient not knowing) is that it matters little to have free and open source software if the market and with him the common user practices are stiffened on vicious mechanisms from which it is always difficult to get away . What meager consolation is to use free software on our computer if we constantly see that most of the information present in the network circulates in completely closed, proprietary, non-transparent forms and ways!