I authored last year a manifesto for the “Fuck the VCs” project: a platform committed to challenging the status quo of the venture capital industry by creating the first open source investment community. The principles outlined in the manifesto resonate deeply with the broader themes that I explore here on my blog, particularly the ideals and ethics of open source. I truly enjoyed writing the Manifesto and figured its principles extend way further than the FTVCs initiative. It’s a call to action for creating a more equitable and sustainable future through collaborative, human-centered innovation. It feels very personal to me and I would read it anytime I am feeling low or need to remember why I do the things I do. I am excited to share it with you all here. ...
We work because we are humans. Looking back at humanity’s history, the evolution of our modes of subsistence shows how central the modes of production and the organisation of human labor are in providing for our material needs. Humans work in order to give meaning to their lives. We work in order to consciously, intentionally shape our surroundings. We work as a socially organised way to expand. We work in order to create value. ...
Knowledge must be freely accessible to all, providing the foundation for informed autonomy and enabling the collective intelligence necessary to address systemic issues and develop collective ambition. Communities must have the freedom to self-organise, and societal structures should facilitate serendipitous innovation and resilience, ensuring that every individual has the same opportunity to contribute to and benefit from the collective effort to solve our biggest problems and achieve their own mission. Structures should be here to empower, not to disable. ...
In my last post —Why Open Source isn’t Profitable—, I explain the Curse of Competition as a sort of Tragedy of the Commons: because open-source intellectual property is free to access, all economic agents will exploit it without giving back (a.k.a. as the free riders issue). If the resource is finite, then its value will tragically be destroyed by this unrestrained consumption. With the same analysis, we can explain how and why our current dominant economic system will eventually consume all of the available natural resources and destroy all living species. That is, unless proper regulations were to be globally adopted (Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, Elinor Ostrom, 1992). ...
In a Capitalist economy, Open Source has no (direct) value. Open source is not profitable Let’s start with a few definitions: the price is the exchange value of a good or a service in a socio-economic context, the production cost is what it costs to build a good or deliver a service, added value is the price minus the production cost. Open-source software delivers an added value close to or below zero. As the price for using it is zero so is the added value, no matter the production cost. ...