Resolve conflict with "Open Source" misuse and identify better terminology #2
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Turns out the US DoD has an opinion. 😏
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Seeing this on https://keygen.sh/ from @ezekg ... "open, source-available" really toeing the line! 😅 |
How I think of this is, what are we gonna use for our next headline? |
From private Slack |
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But "Free Software" ... second term "software"? |
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Any qualifier to "source" or "software" needs to also not be implying anything inaccurate or negative about the other Sources and Softwares out there, I think. |
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Hrm, I guess "Superior Source" is out then. 😏 |
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https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sharedsource/ Would MS want to participate in a "Shared Source" revival? 🤔 |
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Hearing some votes for Sustainable Source around the office. |
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I am reminded of Fair-code (different than Fair Source) by @ezekg in https://keygen.sh/blog/all-your-licensing-are-belong-to-you/. Keygen and Sentry both make the cut! 💃 It is actively maintained, as well; Codecov and Hashi are both listed. 
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Common Source 🤔 |
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First impressions of "Common Source Software"? For me it is suggestive of "Creative Commons" in a good way—it doesn't overly overlap in the way "Public Source" would overlap with "Public Domain." At the same time it has some real semantic content, since the concept of a commons is quite defensible as what we are building here. It's quite a strong story, actually, in that Governing the Commons is all about putting some quasi-governmental enforcements in place to prevent overconsumption. There's a strong research grounding for our approach. "Codecov is now Common Source" Could hunt! Thoughts from others? |
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@benvinegar in Slack:
💃 |
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From @GavinZee:
👍 |
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From private email:
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+1 Fair Code from @ssddanbrown in #10 (comment):
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Oh! Also: Commons Clause (h/t @ssddanbrown). |
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Cooperative Source? Limits free-riding, encourages cooperation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-rider_problem Common Source is still my favorite. |
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Trying on "Open Software Product Consortium."
OSS — Open Source Software OSD — Open Source Definition |
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I'd advise avoiding using "open" if possible since it that's more likely to create friction with the open source community. |
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Fair points. It's not clear to me yet what the right level of provocative-ness will end up being, this option would be on the more provocative end of the spectrum, for sure. |
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Yeah and "open" doesn't convey
Does the name have to be an English word that describes exactly what the license conveys though? "Apache 2.0" and "MIT" are specific licenses (unlike BUSL, which are actually a license family or license type), maybe you can allow more creativity in the name. |
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I think Software Commons works well, Chad, for the reasons you describe. I like it. |
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Alright, optics gaffs notwithstanding, it feels to me like we are converging on Software Commons as the new brand we are going to work with to elevate developer sustainability to a value on par with user freedom. Last call before I close this out. 🙌 |
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Just discovering this initiative today, so not sure this is welcome, but just in case: while I love the initiative and intend to participate, I feel pretty uncomfortable with the name. Digital Commons is a clear concept (democratic governance on informational assets that are non-rival and non-exclusive, drawing on Elinor Ostrom’s work on Commons), and it has some traction at a political level, especially in France and in the EU. Calling this initiative “Software Commons” when it is about sustainability and creating temporary exclusive access will create a major inconsistency and make it very hard to reconcile with the growing number of initiatives that aim at supporting Digital Commons (such as Next Generation Internet Commons announced just last month). |
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You're definitely welcome to chime in, @MattiSG. :-) Thanks for the links re: digital commons. On the one hand I think "software commons" is distinct enough from "digital commons" that we don't need to line up 100% with how the latter term is being taken up in different contexts. On the other, I see a degree of imprecision in how we are using terms. Common pool resources are different than public goods. The latter are non-excludable and non-rivalrous. The former are precisely rivalrous. Do you know why "informational assets that are non-rival and non-exclusive" are referred to as "digital commons" rather than "digital public goods"? Ostrom's framework for developing institutions that prevent tragedies of commons (Governing the Commons, p. 90) is precisely about developing and enforcing rules for who may take resources from the common pool, and under what conditions. Successful CPR management comes from evolving norms of quasi-exclusivity to prevent overuse, enforced by collectively governed institutions. Moreover, these "[i]nstitutions are rarely either private or public - 'the market' or 'the state.' Many successful CPR institutions are rich mixtures of 'private-like' and 'public-like' institutions defying classification in a sterile dichotomy" (p. 14). I think we're on the right track. |
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Hello!! I'm interested in helping with this project! What is currently in the process of being done for it? |
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Thanks for jumping in, @ohnoitsnoah! Now that we've settled on the name, I'm going to close this out and move over to other tickets such as #34 getsentry/softwarecommons.com#1 and #27 to revise softwarecommons.com to be more informative. We have #36 for discussion of over-arching goals. I'll probably do some reorganization and shift to the gitthub.com/softwarecommons org. |
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I'm sorry, but 13 hours is not much time for a "last call." |
The main difference lies in governance models. Public goods in socio-economical theory would be owned and managed by some public institution, whereas common goods are owned by no-one in particular and collectively managed. Now, the evolution of vocabulary is always a tricky thing to explain after the fact, it is no exact science… you know, sometimes some actor falls in love with a term that sounds cool and that they decide to coin quite fast across all platforms in order to ensure they secure it and then they don't want to spend too much time listening to warnings for potential overlaps because that arrives a bit too late for them 😜 For example, “Digital Public Goods” now refers to open source software that follow best practices in terms of interoperability and standards and that have demonstrated their ability to attain the global SDGs, as certified by the @DPGAlliance (United Nations Development Program and Norad), even though they are not necessarily owned by public actors (as opposed to the “Public Code” that the Foundation for Public Code refers to, for example). I have shared above some references to the existence of the term “Digital Commons” to designate informational goods with collective ownership and democratic decision-making by its users and contributors. The definition converged internationally for example at the Open Government Partnership Summit in 2016, and you can track the evolution in scientific literature since then, now bubbling up at EU level since the 2022 Digital Assembly under the French presidency. The vocabulary is quite loaded today and if you were receptive to these arguments on avoiding “open”, they apply just as well for “commons”, and you're likely to be accused of “commons washing” (it's maybe just less visible from the USA where the term is less prevalent yet):
But most importantly, when re-reading the conversation, I fail to see how “user freedom and developer sustainability” is captured by leveraging the “commons” term: Digital Commons are about having democratic governance over a shared informational asset, by users and contributors. I for one would have a hard time reading that “Public Domain” or “Future Source” are one of five types of “Software Commons”: how exactly does the community assembled around the resource has any say in how to restrict or expand usage rights in these cases? No democratic governance ⇒ no commons. Just to clarify: addressing sustainability is critical, I love the ideas of the FSL (and other limited non-compete cases such as RSAL or the CoopCycle license) and of referencing paths to sustainability. I'm just sharing warnings on naming as this conversation seemed to invite to 🙂 |
Just for clarity - Software Commons is not exclusive to this conversation. It’s simply a mechanism to talk about the larger set of values from open software (primarily sustained access), and one which isn’t going to cause confusion around a preexisting registration (Open Source). For us it fits the values well of most open source and some other approaches to free software. That means we believe the ideals of FSL are upheld with the commons, but the commons is not intended to mean explicitly the FSL, but a broader set of talking points. The aim is to help educate people on the values of the different models, in a way that has unfortunately become impossible around the topic of general open source. The overlap with sustainability is primarily from the perspective of how do we keep access to software, to safely sustain its development, rather than resorting to closed source commercial approaches of history. |
Fair enough, reopening. Sorry. 🙇
I myself am unsettled at using Software Commons without a clearer understanding of our goals. To me Software Commons only makes sense as a name if we are founding a new institution, which to my mind should be something like a multi-stakeholder platform cooperative that:
That's a lot to dump here, so I've written up a longer case to unpack my thinking.
If all we're doing is educating then I guess that's fine, but we should put it up on howtoshare.software or something like that, we shouldn't call that Software Commons. 2¢ |
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Wow. There's so much good stuff to unpack in your blog post. I love how your post gets down to economic first-principles. It recognizes that software is an information good, and that information goods are naturally public goods. There's so much good stuff here. You have a number of great references. I'd suggest also having a look at:
We can't discuss the nature of Commons without citing Ostrom's research. If you choose to use "Commons" in your branding, the theories and research into Commons will be prominent in the discourse about your ideas and objectives. There are still-growing social and political movements around advancing the ideas of Commoning that often advocate shifting thinking from "you're on your own" to "we're in this together". I don't think that your goals are aligned with these existing movements. Movements advancing Commons concepts are concerned about achieving "sustainability" in the system that maintains the resources and goods produced that are central to Commoning, and enables Commoners (those who depend on the Commons) to meet "basic needs for sustenance, economic security, and social connections." You're concerned about "sustainability" as well, but it seems to be focused on "how does a producer of software achieve a sustainable business model." Bringing producers and consumers of software together to bargain over what a "fair price" is for the information goods that are produced is more the former mindset ("YO-YO") than the latter ("WITT"). That's how the marketplace around information goods works today under established intellectual property rights. A Commons approach can bring producers and consumers of software together as peers. It enables a consumer of software to participate in the production and maintenance of commonly-held information goods, and to share in prosperity when enjoying those goods for their productive uses. The TL;DR is: I think you absolutely must understand your goals and objectives before you settle on branding for an initiative, whether it's an a vendor-oriented website (similar to what "Fair Source" ended up being?) or establishing a multi-stakeholder initiative. When you hastily adopt terms from existing social and political movements in your branding and marketing, you adopt preexisting values and ideas of those movements. If your values and objectives don't align, you invite criticism from those groups, and confusion from your audience when they receive a different message from others than what you're trying to deliver. |
Arriving Tuesday! I ordered it after this comment, glad for the +1. 😌
I have been trying to combine these concerns, but I'm coming around to seeing that it's better to keep these two goals separate:
The former is what this repo and issue originally set out to address, I sort of brought in the other because I care about it so much I guess :), and now I'd like to spin that portion of the conversation off into a new ticket over in the new I'll likely close this ticket out in the next day or two. 🙏 |
Strong +1. That new outlook at “Software Commons” as a new institution to be created on top directly conflicts with the recurring calls in the last 1.5 years to establish a Foundation for Commons that would be focused on funding and supporting open-source software that has democratic governance and societal impact (so, quite the opposite of “finding sustainable business models in open-source for initial vendors through increased friction to reuse”). References: • OpenFuture's Paradox of Open (summary) |
@mswilson Let's pick this up at softwarecommons/softwarecommons.com#4 (comment).
@MattiSG Let's pick these up at chadwhitacre/howtoshare.software#1 (comment) and softwarecommons/softwarecommons.com#4 (comment). |
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I think that's it? Closing again. 🙈 Thank you all for your participation! Epic thread! 😅 🙏 💃 |
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Hey all, circling back to this old thread to share that we launched Fair Source today. Revisiting @dcramer's original statement:
I'd say we've done a pretty good job of meeting that. Judge for yourself on fair.io. Cheers! 🍻 |
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@chadwhitacre Congrats, The site looks great! Beautiful, well-organised and easy to read. I like that you defined some level of definition to back the term. The only part that raised en eyebrow when reading was the text under the "How does Fair Source relate to Open Source?" FAQ item. The text here feels somewhat opinion based from a certain viewpoint than keeping to the functionality of fair source/open source.
Emphasis mine. Not sure why this is specific "to developers" since everyone (including end-users, companies) would gain from those shared benefits. The "companies are comfortable giving" really depends on the company and their viewpoint/goals. I feel the line would work better without this. Also, linking "Open Source" in that to https://opensource.org/osd may be better as to provide the context of what open source is, rather than what the OSI is. Then in regard to the two boxes beneath this:
That's quite an opinionated take which again depends on perspective, goals, scenario & ideals. As an extra note, the last FAQ item makes it sound like you're assuring that all fair source code will be safe (in terms of security) to use. I get what you're going for though but haven't been able to think of a better succinct title myself. |
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Thanks for the feedback and kind words, @ssddanbrown! Sorry it's taken a while to circle back. I've addressed your points in fairsource/fair.io#54. 👍 |
In #4 we're writing a new license as a first step. The bigger idea is a new brand other than Open Source to represent our values of user freedom and developer sustainability. What might it be?
Update (@dcramer): The intent here is to normalize a category of software which provides more freedom than closed source, and more freedom than typical source-available software. It should not diminish the value of FOSS (or OSI's definition of "Open Source"), but should also not be overly confusing to end-users, and not include prejudice.
Conclusion
We're moving forward with "Fair Source" in fairsource/fair.io#9. 👀
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