Central Governments Involvement in Open Source. What's the Effect?

The benefits of open source for both public and private sectors cannot be belittled. As such, it’s not surprising that even central government have now realized that they too could benefit from open source development.

In a podcast by Software Engineering Daily, Jeff Meyerson talks to Kevin Xu about the involvement of governments in open source. They talk of the different entry approaches taken by central governments of different countries.

Traditionally, central governments especially in communist countries such as China, have not been very fond of any decentralized forms of innovation.

Take for instance the case of Huawei losing its license to use the Android OS in 2019. They went back to the drawing board and they are now about to launch an open-source mobile OS called HarmonyOS. China is banking on open source development to help reduce reliance on foreign technology.

The issue is that the involvement of central governments in open source is going to cause jitters. The open source ecosystem is banked on decentralized governance. Open source enthusiasts do not like the idea of centralized governance. We can all agree that centralized governance would kill the open source spirit of open source development.

The Open Source Ecosystem Needs Some Authority

Will the involvement of governments in open source affect the governance structure of the open source ecosystem?

If these governments do not try to establish any kind of authority within the open source community, then they won’t affect the governance structure.

However, there is no guarantee that they will not try to establish authority. It is common for governments to create policies to take control over systems that benefit them.

Why would they want to establish authority in the open source community in the first place? It’s because there’s no authority in open source.

Do we need authority in open source? Yes, we do!

You are most likely thinking; Don’t we have decentralized governance in open source? It doesn’t work. In fact, it is the cause of a lot of the problems that plague the open source community.

Decentralized governance means no authority. That's why we should be concerned about the involvement of central governments in open source. If there were public authority that is exercised by a duly appointed public authority, the governments would not be able to change the governance structure of open source even if they got involved. They would be getting involved just like any other individual or company.

Decentralized Governance vs Decentralized Authority

Let’s forget about the technology and the internet for a moment. In our physical world, central governments of the day cannot interfere with public authorities. Duly constituted public authorities keep carrying out their mandate regardless of the government of the day because they exercise their authority on behalf of the public.

In other words, I am suggesting the establishment of decentralized authority or participatory central governance.

Don’t get it twisted. I’ve already said that decentralized governance does not work because it does not have authority. I’m also not suggesting centralized governance, as most people know it. I’m talking of a body whose authority is bestowed upon it by the participants.

The body is still decentralized because it does not exercise its own authority, but the participant’s authority.

Central governments will most likely be skeptical of the reliability and security of open source code and software. That’s one of the reasons why they might want to establish authority in open source. We’ve seen similar concerns with big companies and corporations that are trying to use open source software.

These problems will be solved when open source participants have digital identity certificates and professional licenses. We need a participatory central governance body that will issue the identity certificates and the professional licenses.

Visit https://www.whatisauthenticity.com/ to learn more about digital identity certificates and professional licenses.