So after writing my previous, quick post on “MOSS” a few things happened.
Daniel Stenberg, creator of cURL asked on fedi for input on how to present sustainability issues on open source.. Of course I never know how to shut my mouth, so I responded. I should note that points I raised have also been discussed in the NGI Digital Commons Task Force, a grandly named group I’m a member of, which I doubt is very effective. Nonetheless, it’s a forum in which such issues are discussed.
In another fedi thread, I inadvertently seemed to defend companies extracting value from the commons.
And then the Software Freedom Conservancy announced their guidance on LLMs, which led me to rant, amongst other things, yet again on how AI is a fascist project. It led me, once again, to the conclusion that FLOSS is essentially done for. I concluded I was “more than ready for the next thing”.
In that thread, I was asked “what my vision for the next thing” was, and that took me aback a bit.
I mean, I’ve been discussing the pros and cons of a bunch of these topics for ages. Over two years ago now, I wrote about a 0th law of software freedoms. I followed this up a year or so ago on a sustainable digital commons ecosystem. I’ve considered these things semi-rants. Throwing a voice into the ring, one out of many. I did not expect I would be asked for my vision on this, even from people with whom I discussed a fair few of these things in the past.
I also have a great amount of frustration with the fact that still relatively few people seem to “get” why LLMs are such a danger to the digital commons, and why I consider FLOSS as such both a success and a failure. I would love for more people to come to this conclusion, and shape the next thing. I want a voice in that.
But I do not wish to be the voice of this. The reason is fairly simple: I do not have the spoons for this, and I doubt I ever will have. Community building is huge effort for me, leadership similarly. I do this in my $dayjob, and want no part of it in private life. Also, to cut a longer story short, spoons I would use for this should go to other parts of my life, which has unambiguous priority.
At the same time, I also do not wish to be “guilty” of things never taking any shape. So what’s a person to do? Write a manifesto!?
I toyed with this thought, but I didn’t enjoy it. For one thing, manifestos are misleading. They generalize and simplify complex topics to leave enough room for interpretation so that many people can sign up for them. In the drive to simplify, they can easily get twisted, either in intent or in how they’re received, and no longer add value to discussion.
Also - and this is a seemingly small, but actually massively important point - if we start things off with another middle-aged white man’s manifesto, we’re off to the wrong start.
In the end, I did outline some pillars on which I think “the next thing” should rest. They’re soft requirements. Negotiable, not so much in their essence, but very much so in their form. They’re incomplete. They’re somewhat vague, not with the intent to invite people to see themselves in them, but for people to examine what that means to them. These reflections must make it back into those foundations.
Which is why none of this can be a manifesto. At least none that I would write.
Note that throughout I use the term “MOSS gardening” a fair bit.I think that this term is not merely cutesy, though there is some whimsy to it. It also best represents the activities of contributors to a healthy commons. The commons needs to be nurtured. And moss (the plant, not the software) are a keystone species, i.e. one that has a disproportionally large effect on its environment relative to its abundance. Moss retains up to 20 of its weight in liquid. Moss insulates. Moss therefore helps maintain balance in its environment by storing excesses that can be released when needed.
This is what we need commons software to be.
- The First Pillar: Human Rights
- The Second Pillar: Scale
- The Third Pillar: Preservation
- The Fourth Pillar: The Future
If you have come this far and read the four pillars, it feels like there should be some summary now, some pithy vision statement.
I have none.
MOSS gardening is a complex issue. They four pillars can make it flourish.
That’s it for this text, which is not a manifesto.