[squeak-dev] Don Goodman-Wilson’s moral critique of Open Source

Ron Teitelbaum ron at usmedrec.com
Thu Oct 17 16:11:50 UTC 2019


Hi All,

I'll jump right into the deep end!

This is definitely a hard problem to solve.  It seems like we are getting
close to having the technology to solve the problem but the questions that
need to be addressed are really difficult and need to be answered before we
can apply technology to track it.

To start the conversation let's assume we have the answers to these
questions.

When I contribute to a project I should receive value from that
contribution that is proportionate to the contribution.  When I use the
software I should contribute to the software in a way that is proportionate
to the value I receive from using that software. These two statements are
very simple and does not address other concerns like ethical use or other
benefits received by contributors.

If you get either side of the equation wrong everything breaks.  Companies
will not use the software if the cost is too high or the risk that the
price will grow is too great.  Maintainers will not support the software if
they feel their contributions are undervalued, or if the benefit is too
great gaming the system will proliferate and the quality of contributions
will go down.

In open source software today you can make the argument that companies that
benefit do contribute by hiring developers to maintain and develop software
that is in some cases contributed back to the community.

If we can answer the questions about how to determine proportionate
contributions to the software and value received by using the software, we
could have a blockchain for a project with a pool of development tokens
that gain value as companies purchase tokens to be used as licenses. The
value of the tokens increases with time and popularity of the software
project. Tokens value can be decreased over time from everyone to replenish
the development / maintenance pool by increasing the number of tokens
available and companies will be required to either purchase new tokens to
keep up their license requirements or to contribute to development /
maintenance activities. Tokent holders should have a proportionate say in
how the new development or maintenance activities progress.  Liquidity
comes from interactions between token holders and purchasers which may not
be guaranteed if the project is losing popularity or failing to be
maintained.  The incentives are to contribute new projects and to get
licenses early to reduce the costs and increase the benefits.  It also
pushes the costs and payments down as project loses popularity.
Extremely popular software may become too expensive for companies to use so
speculation needs to be curved in some way maybe by defining token doubling
moments based on the size of the development community and the number of
customer licenses.  Those are details but very important ones to consider.

Open source can also provide companies the opportunity to develop
additional IP which they pay for and need to maintain on their own.  Would
a collaborative software licenses allow this activity or would
contributions of IP be a requirement.  Could companies develop IP which
would then require additional licenses that go directly to the developer
entity. These details are really important to companies when they decide to
use or develop software.  Having a Squeak marketplace for software
developed in Squeak would be a very interesting development if the purchase
price benefits everyone including feature creators, platform developers and
maintainers.

We should also consider that companies that develop software today using
open source use a very large number of open source projects.  Some of these
projects are only popular because they are easy to integrate or are already
included in other components.  They solve a small problem in a very complex
solution and often when these projects are abandoned there is a very huge
risk that changes and the lack of consistency will require huge development
and is hampering innovation and not supporting it.  When I use Linux I
don't select all the components but I use them.  If open source is
decimated what will be the impact on innovation and would our concepts
support or hamper advancements in software?  (be careful what you wish for)

Eliot and I have also been talking about the additional benefits to
participants and companies that are not addressed by fees and compensation.
It is important that these benefits be organized and recognized as a
benefit to both sides.  The concept of a Guild has always made sense to
me.  Having a Guild of members that are guaranteed to have the required
skills for companies to select from would be a great benefit for companies
looking for talent.  Having an organization that provides that
certification, training, along with benefits like pensions, unemployment,
or payment for contributions to software would be beneficial for members.
Guilds could also work together to build commercial products that support
the member benefits.

So now the hard part.

How do you determine the value of a contribution?

How do you determine the value of the software to a company to determine
what they should pay?

Would you join a Guild to get certified and/or placed on an availability
list?

Would you use a guild to hire software developers?

Would you support a software marketplace that built applications on top of
a collaborative software projects that supports everyone or would this just
splinter development and make it too difficult for a company to actually
use the software.  How does this affect tiny software projects that are
really just components of much larger projects.

What are your thoughts on building a blockchain market for collaborative
software projects?  (does it solve problems or make things more
complicated?)

Feel free to join in the conversation the water is nice!

All the best,

Ron Teitelbaum

On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 9:16 AM Herbert König <herbertkoenig at gmx.net> wrote:

> Hi Eliot,
>
>
> I think it's not the first time to point us to that kind of resource.
> Highly on topic IMHO. Will read it because we (Squeak Dev) are affected.
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>
> Herbert
>
>
> Am 17.10.2019 um 13:13 schrieb Eliot Miranda:
>
> Don Goodman-Wilson’s moral critique of Open Source; essential reading.
>
>
> “What if we look at Open Source values through the lens of moral
> philosophy, by applying Scanlon’s contractualist theory of morality? When
> we do that, I think it becomes pretty clear that we ought to discard
> openness as an axiom, and start thinking about other ways to build software
> collaboratively that do not make us accessory to horrors. We can create
> open communities, better communities, more inclusive communities, without
> Open Source.
>
>
> The Open Source movement has always been focused on code. The result is a
> system that sadly neglects people."
>
> ...
>
> “Here are some candidate principles to guide an ethical conception of
> collaborative development.”
>
> https://don.goodman-wilson.com/posts/open-source-is-broken/
>
> _,,,^..^,,,_ (phone)
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/attachments/20191017/038b3dd7/attachment.html>


More information about the Squeak-dev mailing list