I couldn’t help but think of one of my favorite movies Hello, Dolly when I read David Heinemeier Hansson’s blog post I won’t let you pay me for my open source. He details his thought journey of the open source platform as a place where intrinsic motivation and self-transcendence find their expression, and how his development of Ruby on Rails as open source has brought him to a place of purpose that isn’t fettered with what he describes as the “overly rational cost-benefit analysis…that’s impoverishing our lives.” He envokes the idea of the jubilee (where debts are freely forgiven) through a series of narratives and concludes:
I hereby declare a jubilee for all imagined debt or obligations you think you might owe me or owe the Rails community as a whole. Let no one call upon you to ever feel obligated to repay this vanquished debt. Contribute to the Rails community because it brings meaning to your life. Because writing Ruby sparks joy. Don’t participate if it doesn’t.
Hanson
This idea of using open source to “spark joy” as opposed to what Hansson describes as “market-soaked lives” is where Hello, Dolly comes in. Pure joy happened when I activated a free plugin from Matt Mullenweg, one of the builders of WordPress (which was originally built as a non-profit blogging platform to allow anyone, anywhere, to build a blog and now 40% of the word’s website are built on WordPress and where most of those tools are still free to use), called Hello, Dolly and is advertised as follows:
“This is not just a plugin, it symbolizes the hope and enthusiasm of an entire generation summed up in two words sung most famously by Louis Armstrong: Hello, Dolly. When activated you will randomly see a lyric from Hello, Dolly in the upper right of your admin screen on every page.”
Mullenweg
And speaking of Louis Armstrong, Hannson even has a line in the article that echoes the title (and sentiment) of What a Wonderful World, another song made famous by Louis Armstrong. Hannson exclaims: “When I look at the literally billions of dollars in business that’s been done on the basis of this thing I started, I don’t look at that with envy or an open mouth….I don’t think ‘I should have had some of that’… I think what a wonderful world!”
Behind all of the sparks of joy of course is hard work, a need for resources and a market-driven economy that make up the landscape of business. Hansson discusses these items in the framework of scarcity mentality. He talks about freeloaders and the fear that there is just not enough to go around. He also mentions the “Malthusian specter” embedded in our psyche that “warns” society it can only support a set number of humans before resources run out.
Hansson doesn’t try to argue for “virtue or vice” within his treatise. He simply is interested in how the “scarcity paradigm” plays with the “Gates” types and the “Stallman” types of entities as they counter this scarcity issue. Both of these types rely on “trade exchange” for settlement of “debt obligations.”
Hansson points out also the tragedy of the commons is a “conceptual misappropriation for open-source software development.” Software has no marginal cost which makes freeloaders free so there is no scarcity to speak of or about which to be concerned. I like how Hansson lets us know no harm has come to him even though his software RAILS has been downloaded about 170 millions time and more than a millions applications have been built with it.
He said that we must accept the fact that there is NO tragedy of the commons with open-source software. As we accept that fact, we also need to reframe our other assumptions about open source like it isn’t sustainable, that is isn’t an exchange of good and services, that makers of the software are accruing debt as the software is being used, and that our obligations for use of the software scales based on the size of our businesses.
This brings me to a the question posed by Mana Saadia in Trekonomics: “What would the world look like if everybody had everything they wanted or needed?” Would that we had a Star Trek “Federation” society where all citizens have their basic needs met and could pursue their passions with no exchange of money. Saadia describes the motivation (instead of wealth accumulation) for Star Trek Federation characters. He said: ”Justice seems to be their most profound concern and what they’re aiming for as good people.” This idea would play into Hansson’s argument for open source that doesn’t produce the inequality spoken of in the ideas of several philosophers he quotes as he waxes into his treatise.
Part of what Hansson attempts to express while philosophizing is this concept of the responsibility of being true to oneself and the product being built. A section of that comes under the idea of sustainability. Hanson cautioned that we need to be careful of how that term is used because of its tie to the market. He said sustainability can be used if not defined by forced compliance.
He explains further his thoughts on open source and his numerations remind me of the evolution of Wikipedia. It is free and open for changes to the content. Yet it is so ubiquitous now that it has become self-regulating because of the user base that relies on its existence. I see these parameters in Ruby and other products Hansson has created. Because he has given the code out freely, the user base has built-up passion for the continuous improvement and adaptation of the software. This comes about as the user community matures, there is a post-scarcity element to the continued production and use of the product, and altruistic motivations kick in as normal means of exchange.
My take on what we learn from Hansson’s treatise: What a wonderful world this could be as the principles of joy, jubilee and justice continue to grow through open source based products.
#opensource #openscholarship