I would argue that open source as we know fails to balance the market. We now have monopolistic tech incumbents in the “GAFAM“ companies, that thrive on open source while paying little tax and outcompeting actual tax paying businesses. I see maintainers either burning out or selling out to venture capitalists.
I want to believe in free and open source, but I also see that it fully enables surveillance capitalism, casino capitalism and tax avoiding monoliths.
So, I realize that I need to move past classic licensing and consider ethical licensing that try to remedy society’s inequalities and injustices.
Call me a cyber hippie, but if I want to build cool stuff in my spare time to share I want to maximize its chances of doing something good in the world. To that end I’m evaluating some ethical licenses.
There are many ethical licenses out there which are evolving. Presently, I’m evaluating this one: The (Cooperative) Non-Violent Public License: https://thufie.lain.haus/NPL.html
After the weekend I’ll try to get in touch with a Lawyer to review the license implications. It’s arguably not open source in definition, but maybe more so in spirit.
https://ethicalsource.dev/
The hard problem is multifaceted:
I would argue that open source as we know fails to balance the market. We now have monopolistic tech incumbents in the “GAFAM“ companies, that thrive on open source while paying little tax and outcompeting actual tax paying businesses. I see maintainers either burning out or selling out to venture capitalists.
I want to believe in free and open source, but I also see that it fully enables surveillance capitalism, casino capitalism and tax avoiding monoliths.
So, I realize that I need to move past classic licensing and consider ethical licensing that try to remedy society’s inequalities and injustices.
Call me a cyber hippie, but if I want to build cool stuff in my spare time to share I want to maximize its chances of doing something good in the world. To that end I’m evaluating some ethical licenses.
There are many ethical licenses out there which are evolving. Presently, I’m evaluating this one: The (Cooperative) Non-Violent Public License: https://thufie.lain.haus/NPL.html
After the weekend I’ll try to get in touch with a Lawyer to review the license implications. It’s arguably not open source in definition, but maybe more so in spirit.