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A companies primary responsibility is to return money to its shareholders.
This responsibility is so strong that we literally had to invent the B-Corp designation to say “hey maybe we should only do things that are beneficial to people beyond shareholders?” https://twitter.com/polotek/status/1294127815953063936
This responsibility is so strong that we literally had to invent the B-Corp designation to say “hey maybe we should only do things that are beneficial to people beyond shareholders?” https://twitter.com/polotek/status/1294127815953063936
B-Corps aren’t a panacea. Decisions to prioritize public benefit over profit distributions or share price boosting strategies and tactics aren’t guaranteed. Officers can still mismanage the company. Employees still don’t have representation on the board.
If we want sustainable open source, package projects in such a way that it generates income; and hold that income within a legal structure that places control in the hands or maintainers, users, and contributors.
One example of such an institution is @RubyTogether. Unfortunately, most Ruby packages aren’t productized in a self sustaining way. They rely on Corporate sponsors to provide cash or employee time.
The most common way to productize an open source project is through a “premium” version (see SideKiq, NginX) or offer professional services.
There are other ways of course, the one I’m most interested in is what I’m calling community source or cooperative source.
Community Source grants wide permissions for use so long as:
1. You’re a human being and not a organization _or_
2. You bought a license _or_
3. You’re a dues-paying member of the organization that maintains the project.
1. You’re a human being and not a organization _or_
2. You bought a license _or_
3. You’re a dues-paying member of the organization that maintains the project.
This does two things:
1. It preserves _personal_ liberty
2. It creates clear affordances for capturing some of the wealth the projects create for their consumers.
1. It preserves _personal_ liberty
2. It creates clear affordances for capturing some of the wealth the projects create for their consumers.
There are a number of groups doing interesting work in this space. @tidelift for instance, provides a membership organization that captures revenue for project maintainers. So does Open Collective. However they do not conditionalize use on membership, a sustainability hole.
I posit that an alternative structure, where projects are held in a proprietary, source available license by a legal entity structured for capturing wealth and distributing it to project maintainers and contributors will be more sustainable over the span of decades.
Anyway, have I told y’all about @ZincCooperative?
