Defining Fairness in the Use of Open Source

👥 Working Groups Sustainability Models
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Hi SustainOSS, first new post here. I hope this message has found the right sub-category.

@Cameron_Greenburg and I’s public-benefit company FairOSS, is constructing a new model for sustainability (Our Groundwater Program) involving re-framing some fundamental norms around the use of the open source. We have established a trademark for our program to represent “fair play” principles that we hope will eventually become a widely adopted symbol for those organizations that contribute to the software that has generated value for them.

We hope to begin infusing the idea of open source as a form of investment capital into the public dialogue. We understand that this may ruffle feathers with some people, our intention is true and we don’t seek to be the only sustainability solution, just part of it. Currently, companies invest in their human capital by granting stock options, paying salaries, and benefits packages, and proprietary software through license subscriptions, we want them to invest in open source in a similar manner.

We are actively soliciting companies and have closed several equity arrangements with companies who want to contribute a percentage of their business value to their open source dependencies. We are still an early-stage company but are receiving some very promising market feedback for this idea.

To get this conversation started I wanted to see what the SustainOSS community thought of fairness as it relates to the use of open-source (maybe the use of open source can be adjusted here). We have taken the liberty of drafting some very preliminary principles in the hopes that you all could offer community insight, we don’t want to do this alone. Really excited to be part of this community and look forward to the discussion!

Draft Principles of Fairness in the Use of Open Source

  1. Code is free, communities are not (ie. people’s time is not a free resource)
  2. Open source software is capital, like investors, communities deserve a return
  3. Donations are great but equity is better
  4. Dependencies are projects too
  5. Financial contributions do not equal governance
  6. Project contributions take many forms and should be valued as such

Thanks all for reading!

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The ground you’re covering overlaps some with work we did at Sustain earlier this year, and in subsequent working groups, to define some proposed Principles of Authentic Participation as well as a loosely defined transparency goal and some proposed Goals for Corporate Accountability (shown at the top of the transparency goal link).

I’d be interested in seeing how you’re working to calculate business value realized from dependency analysis, as I’ve been doing similar work. I don’t see anything on the site or on GitHub about how you’re proposing to approach the problem. Is there anything you’d be willing to share?

I’m also reminded of the move made by Citus Data to donate 1% of their equity to PostgreSQL non-profits. That was timely, given their acquisition by Microsoft a few months later.

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The ground you’re covering overlaps some with work we did at Sustain earlier this year, and in subsequent working groups, to define some proposed Principles of Authentic Participation as well as a loosely defined transparency goal and some proposed Goals for Corporate Accountability (shown at the top of the transparency goal link).

@DuaneOBrien, thanks for making me aware of this. I would love to plug into any working groups that exist or help facilitate them. I think we align very closely with some of the attributes already defined. @RichardLitt mentioned you as someone I should connect with so thanks for reaching out! For context, we aren’t a political organization, we are an early-stage financial services startup trying to bring equity (purposeful overloading of the term here) to open source with the hope of eventually making open source projects directly investable. This is the model of our Groundwater Program.

I’d be interested in seeing how you’re working to calculate business value realized from dependency analysis, as I’ve been doing similar work. I don’t see anything on the site or on GitHub about how you’re proposing to approach the problem. Is there anything you’d be willing to share?

Today we seek to tie business value to open source by working with Groundwater companies to commit and allocate equity (or equity equivalents) to their dependencies in a manner that both parties agree is fair (initially this is a judgment call as we refine the definition). This is analogous to an employee being granted stock options for contributing their experience, knowledge, relationships, and intellectual property to the company. We have various levels (and badges) depending on whether they meet a certain threshold. We recognize other forms of contribution as valuable as well, such as cash, tokens, and in-kind contributions such as having an in house OS office or dev team. We want to manage these “contribution tables” for companies and work with project governance to do the same, with the addition of contributors. In aggregation with other data partners (must be part of our Groundwater network) and with more people participating in the program we can begin to assemble more formulaic definitions of value.

I’m also reminded of the move made by Citus Data to donate 1% of their equity to PostgreSQL non-profits. That was timely, given their acquisition by Microsoft a few months later.

Thanks for this example, I was unaware. Also, another example is Anaconda, listed here. We are get excited seeing early signs that this may be a viable alternative for open source sustainability.

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Hi @rpekrul, welcome to the Sustain OSS community! :wave:

I work at the UNICEF Innovation Fund, a first-of-its-kind vehicle in the UN for offering financial support and business mentorship to geographically-dispersed start-ups and UNICEF Country Offices on creating Open Source works. The Fund launched in 2015, and our current approach to Open Source investing was pioneered in early 2018.

A bit about our Open Source component from our website:

The Innovation Fund invests exclusively in open source technology solutions. The investments can go either to UNICEF Country Offices or to private sector companies in UNICEF programme countries.

By investing in multiple concurrent teams working on similar problems and technology stacks the Fund can accelerate both the development of products, as well as the building, iteration, and exit of the teams around the technologies. The Fund also invests in early-stage “knowledge products” - operations research that is published in the public domain and supports investment strategies and decisions.

Through its investments, the Innovation Fund is generating value by strengthening communities of problem solvers, increasing the pool of global digital public goods, and growing solutions that bring results for children and the world.

We seem to have similar but differing approaches to the same problem area. The Innovation Fund acts as a traditional VC unit, although we have recently partnered with the Ethereum Foundation to launch the UNICEF CryptoFund, the UN’s first financial vehicle for receiving, holding, and disbursing cryptocurrency.

I feel like we would have some interesting stories to swap about how to measure and demonstrate value of investments into Open Source intellectual property and works. :grinning:

I like the list you drafted so far. But I am curious, could you share more about your motivations and interests in building this standard? What is the goal for these principles in practice? I think the answers to these questions will inform the discussion.

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@jwf That’s really cool, we should chat to explore similarities and areas to collaborate. The groundwater program contains a community fund that is facilitated by FairOSS. Nearly all contributions flowing through the program will go back to the communities. We are a public benefit corporation, using this status allows us to create an economic engine for sustaining open source and the flexibility to direct our investments towards the social good.

I like the list you drafted so far. But I am curious, could you share more about your motivations and interests in building this standard? What is the goal for these principles in practice? I think the answers to these questions will inform the discussion.

Sure. The purpose of the principles is to give our trademark meaning so that when our community members see the symbol, they know where a company stands on their use of open-source. Investors will also see the brand as a form meeting ESG guidelines which is a proven method for screening investments.

I presented a draft version to the SustainOSS community in hopes of either contributing to something that already existed or offering a start to collaboratively developing them if anyone was interested.

What are your thoughts on the items listed given the context? It may be better to shift this to our Github repo or Google Docs. I can do this if there is sufficient interest.

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In this quarter, I commit to restarting/reinvigorating the working group to take on the Corporate Accountability goal “Set and publish a goal for open source contribution relative to value capture.” I’ve got a fair amount of work I could share here.

Also happy to jump on a call @rpekrul to discuss further. x.ai/calendar/duane

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