Section outline

  • Question: How to compensate for coders’ work on publicly available projects?

    Recommended material: A Ford Foundation report by Eghbal and this paper by Pazaitis and Kostakis.

    Highlights:

    • Free and open-source software makes software production: faster; more inclusive and passionate; cheaper; and more innovative.
    • Free and open-source software projects are underfunded because of free riding; lack of awareness; and anti-money culture.
    • Key distinction: Consumer software vs. infrastructure software.
    • How to support or fund free and open-source software (FOSS) production (no solution is perfect):
      1. Public procurement 
      2. Release publicly funded code as open-source ("public money, public code")
      3. Hire key developers 
      4. Tax-exempt for open-source organizations
      5. Create a tax/fee for for-profit companies that use FOSS 
      6. Promote FOSS through education (teachers, students, see Google’s Summer of Code)
      7. Create public awareness and institutionalise appreciation 
      8. Experiment with new commons-oriented licenses to ensure that for-profit companies reciprocate (dual licensing)
      9. Tokenization