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Open Source, Politics, and Governance
At Mondo Globo, I just blogged some thoughts about the character of an Open Source Political Party. Here's what I said:
Openness
Many of us who are tech-focused have come to understand the power of open approaches and open architectures. Even technologies that are't strictly "Open Source" benefit from Open APIs and exposure of operating code (kind of inherent with scripting languages like Perl and PHP). When we know how something works, we know how to work with it. And we know how to tansofrm it to meet our needs.
Government should be as open and transparent as possible. There may be some rationales for closed doors, but few - for the most part, citizens should be able to see clearly how decisons are made. That's a key component of our political platform: we want to see the actual "source code" for the decisoins that affect our lives.
Collaboration
Open Source projects are often highly collaborative and can involve many stakeholders, not just manager and coders. The Open Source Party sees this as a great way to do government. (I"m partial to charrette methodology, personally.)
Emergent Leadership
In many Open Source projects, leaders can - or must - emerge. We need to acknowledge that this is true in politics, as well. Leadrs may be appointed, assigned, or elected, but there is also room for leaders to emerge socially rather than through formal selection process. Emergent leaders aren't handed authority - they earn it. They deserve respect and acknowledgement.
Extensible and Adaptable
Open Source projects and structures are agile and malleable - they can be adapted and extended as requirements changed. Governance should have this kind of flexibility, and our system of governance in the U.S. was actually built that way. We should ensure that bureaucracies and obsolete rule sets don't undermine that flexibility.
jon posted this at 11:10 AM
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