Decide on goals

[chadwhitacre]

Here's kinda how we got here:

I think the way forward here is to make what I suspect is a loose confederation of folks using non-compete licenses to actually get together and draft their own set of values. To then brand that. And stand behind it proudly.

Is that indeed our goal?

@dcramer and I and others at Sentry have been thinking specifically in terms of writing a new license to replace BUSL-1.1, so I've made https://github.com/getsentry/loose-confederation/issues/4 for that. [Update: shipped.]

What are the outputs and outcomes that people are interested in?

[djc]

Maybe some good marketing materials to rally around?

I'm thinking along the lines of the four freedoms.

[chadwhitacre]

I think we have an unresolved question about whether we're just doing a new license (#4) or we're coming up with a whole new brand on the order of Free Software and Open Source (#2). Marketing specifics will depend on that decision it seems.

[chadwhitacre]

Circling back after a month ... here at Sentry the approach we're interested in pursuing is to start with a new license (#4) that addresses the flaws with the BSL. If we see some momentum around that maybe it will grow into a wider brand, but to start with we want to focus concretely on the license effort. I'll leave this open for a bit in case anyone wants to chime in differently, otherwise I will see you over on getsentry/fsl.software#4!

[chadwhitacre]

Now that the license (#4) is almost out the door (#7), I am reopening this to discuss what comes next.

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I think what would be awesome to have exist would be a new non-profit organization, likely a trade association with companies as members. Membership criteria would be something like:

1. The company's core products are available under open-ish licenses (FSL, ELv2, etc.).
2. The company gives some minimum amount annually to FOSS, no strings attached.
   1. Minimum (e.g.): $1000k per dev or 0.5% of rev.
   2. Members report annually and the info is public on the new org's website.

In other words, balancing user freedom and developer sustainability. Governance of the org would determine process for defining the above and vetting companies for membership.

We've got getsentry/fsl.software#2 for naming; my current favorite is Software Commons so I'm going to use that here.

• Software Commons Consortium—The new org.

• Software Commons Member—Appellation that member companies are permitted to use, and non-member companies are not permitted to use (#6). "Open Source is not a business model. There's no such thing as an Open Source company." Okay, fine, but clearly the world wants there to be such a thing, so let's invent it. 😤😁💃

• Sustainable Source—Designation for core products from member companies under permitted licenses. Headline next time around: "Codecov++ is now Sustainable Source."

Comparisons

• Software Commons Consortium is like Open Source Initiative, but in addition to user freedom we also value developer sustainability (i.e., we care about the free-rider problem).

• Software Commons Consortium is kinda like Fair-code, but we're a real org with affiliations, not just a list of links.

• Software Commons Consortium is a little like Linux Foundation, but we waste less on "marketing" and boondoggles.

[ssddanbrown]

This is looking like a good development to fill/brand that source-available space. I'd be interested to see how the community reacts and runs with it.

I don't see anything about a definition there though. I've thought OSI's model of having a definition, which they then steward and validate licenses against, has worked well rather than limit to specific licenses. It provides transparency into what the licenses are being validated to, and does not force their licensing review process itself to be a gate-keeper.

(Comment originally posted in getsentry/fsl.software#36)

[chadwhitacre]

More moderate goal in https://github.com/softwarecommons/howtoshare.software/issues/1.

[chadwhitacre]

Okay so is our goal education only (#1) or are we building an institution? The latter is a big commitment, so I've written up a more in-depth case for that option. Honestly I could go either way, but if we don't commit to an institution then I think it impacts naming.

[chadkoh]

Was just reading this interesting article on "institutionism" which describes the wider political economy:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-923X.13363

It captures our "moment" pretty well, and argues for “Institutional pluralism” since “we need different kinds of institution for different spheres of life”. Software certainly counts. We have been pushing this particular large boulder the size of a giant boulder up the hill at Fission for a long time.

Anyways, I submit this article as context for the different forms of institutions there are. Should it be a non-prof? A B-corp? A transnational multistakeholder forum like the IGF? A conference? A network of local meetups? There are many options. What is the strategic path to cultural institution?

[chadwhitacre]

Thanks for chiming in, @chadkoh. :)

This passage in the paper was helpful, on the distinction between institutions and organizations (p. 8):

What is an institution? Geoff Hodgson has provided a helpful definition. Institutions are ‘the systems of established and prevalent social rules that structure interaction’. This definition is deliberately broad. It focusses on the rules that provide a structure within which social and economic interaction occurs, and which therefore shape it. This includes organisations, but is not limited to them.

Some institutions are organisations. The limited liability company is an institution in the sense of being a set of rules for structuring asset ownership, production and employment, and limited companies are organisations. Similarly, the Bank of England is an institution, both in the sense of embodying a particular set of rules to organise monetary policy and as a constituted organisation. But some social and economic institutions are not organisations: marriage, for example, is a set of rules which structure the organisation of families, and environmental law is a set of rules which structure the relationship between firms and their environmental impacts.

Your comment also puts me in mind of this Ostrom quote (Governing the Commons, p. 14):

Institutions 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.

[chadwhitacre]

I talked this through with @dcramer, and we are going to decouple the "non-compete sharing is good" branding goal from the "fund the maintainers" goal that is behind my perspective on the need for an institution/organization. We're going to keep looking at using "Software Commons" for the latter, while finding a different heading for the former. I'm going to leave this thread open until I've got a new repo spun up for the branding goal, since the original repo has morphed into being specifically about FSL, which is just one small part of that overall story.

[MattiSG]

Thanks for the update and clarifications! 👍

The “fund the maintainers” goal is definitely aligned with the broader Digital Commons current movements and tensions. EU is getting ripe for it (see https://github.com/getsentry/fsl.software/issues/2#issuecomment-1982328368). Happy to work together on making this global!

[chadwhitacre]

Thanks @MattiSG. I've sent you an email to see if we can schedule a call to continue building understanding and talk about how best to work together. :)

[chadwhitacre]

It's a bit of a flip-flop, but I've transferred this issue back from the softwarecommons.com repo to the fsl.software repo. It started here and it should stay here now that we're moving on from it. I'll see everyone over on the follow-ups in softwarecommons.com and howtoshare.software!