A New Software Model - Governed Open Source

The world of software licensing has always been divided into two models. Proprietary and open source models. These two licensing models have served as well for long. However, there have always been concerns about compensation within the open-source development world.

Open-source developers, whether in big teams, small teams, or as an individual, are always concerned about how they can earn sustainable income from their work. That has pushed big open-source software development teams to start behaving like proprietary software companies.

That ends up defeating the entire logic of the existence of open-source software. It is no longer open-source software if it has proprietary licenses attached to it.

The Third Software Licensing Model

Small open-source development teams and individual developers often struggle to maintain steady revenue streams. Most of them depend on contract revenue which in most cases is unsustainable. That means a lot of great projects end up deserted. Very few developers would be willing to put in a lot of hard would to see the completion of a project without getting any incentive.

Why can we have a third model? The Osmio team and the Authenticity Institute the open-source development world needs something better.

Allow me to introduce that third model to you.

But first, to quote a big software-driven company, this is not your usual yada yada.

This is genuinely new.

It’s about governance.

The idea of governance in the open-source development world does not augur well with a lot of players in that space.

However, if we are to get to a point where every open-source developer is well compensated for their work, then they need to be accountable.

Governance in Open-Source Development

The proprietary ecosystems of Apple, Adobe, Microsoft, Oracle and others are governed. In each case, an identifiable entity, a company, takes responsibility for keeping the system useful and secure. That’s good.

Open source software, by virtue of being open-source, offers endless possibilities. Not everyone around the world can become a software developer. Open-source software can offer a lifeline for small business as the business world progresses through digital transformation.

Also, anyone can put open source software to use, avoid market manipulation, proprietary barriers, license fees, file format gotchas, hidden privacy erosion techniques, and the rest of the not so good stuff that infests proprietary software.

Proprietary software might have been OK when your phone was wired into the wall and your “micro” computer was an unconnected glorified typewriter. However, we are now living a large portion of our lives in the digital world, that private, closed governance has us all living down on the plantations of the owners of those proprietary platforms.

That governance is not bad. Proprietary software companies can be held accountable because they are allowed to govern everything within they software.

Why can’t we have governance in open-source software? How do we merge open-source software development and governance?

We can surely have the benefits of both governed systems and one source systems at the same time.

The answer is: Governed Open Source

As mentioned earlier, the idea of governance in the open-source world does not sit well with many open-source developers. Everyone has to realize that the reason most people and business who use open-source software are reluctant to paying for it is lack of accountability.

Before we illustrate by taking closer look at that word governance, we need to deal with that old bugaboo, centralization. Specifically, we’ll quote the noted advocate of decentralization, Lawrence Lundy-Bryan, who proclaims

“There is no such thing as decentralized governance.”

A lot of the players within the open-source development world might argue that there is decentralized governance.

If you think about it, isn’t that self-evident? The things we use in our daily lives, including software, may work OK as disconnected widgets, but if governance is a do-your-own-thing matter, well, that’s simply not governance.

Let’s bring our minds to the physical world for a moment.

In the physical world, municipalities are effectively governed by activists – residents who get involved by showing up for hearings and paying attention to what goes on in city hall.

The governance of cities is much more participatory than the governance of nations, with their many layers of representation and bureaucracy obfuscating the realities of government from the governed. It’s nations, not cities, that give centralized government, and by implication centralized governance, its bad rap.

We can use the tools of Accountable Anonymity to bring direct participatory governance to the cities. That means that anyone who takes the time and trouble to understand the issues can participate in governance. (Conversely, a person who shows up for a vote without having been at least present for the debate must sit that one out.) We call it optimocracy.

Can the same notions of governance apply to our digital world?

Why not? Governance of proprietary digital ecosystems is by people who are by law accountable only to the stockholders who own the company. Interestingly, in the United States and many other countries, their performance is judged only by the performance of their stock in the stock market. If they manage to make money by burglarizing your “information home,” stealing your personal information and putting it on their balance sheet as a money making asset, then by the standards of Wall Street, that’s good.

But by the standards of you and me, isn’t that an atrocity? It amounts to nothing less than an attempt at ownership of our digital selves. There’s a word for that. A very ugly word.

Sources of proprietary technology are governed by a management team and a board of directors. You’re not invited to participate in that governance unless you own a substantial portion of the company’s voting stock.

But then, we did start by noting the benefit that proprietary ecosystems bring to the users of their software, in that an identifiable entity takes responsibility for keeping the system useful and secure.

Governed open source will help bring accountability to open source technology, while keeping it open. We need to think of accountable anonymity within the open-source world. Accountability will clear most of the concerns that the businesses and people using open source software have. These people and businesses would therefore have to pay for the professional accountability attached to the software they are using.

Learn more about how governed open source technology keeps open source open, while at the same time bringing that strong accountability element to the open source world at https://governance.osmio.ch