Thread · 16 tweets · 30 Jan 2024

Ah, sorry, I didn't catch the context change! The commons bit of the thread was about devs not participating being a tragedy of the commons and I was still on that. Sorry, I'm going to braindump at you; first open source, then web infrastructure 😬😉

Open source in general is a bit complicated because most projects would not be viable if they couldn't use their dependencies for free, but they're also not sustainable because they themselves are not getting paid. And then $BIG_CLOUD_COMPANY makes a ton of money from your thing.

There are several ongoing projects to solve that: • Some folks are working on licenses that give rights to contributors (in money or work) and not others. It's interesting (creates a more robust commons) but I don't understand how you scale that to many dependencies.

• Some governments (e.g. Germany) are developing funds that give grants to open source infrastructure. I think that's cool and there should be more of it; I don't think it can cover everything. Maybe they should focus on critical infra (e.g. security).

• Then there's rPGF projects (like community.optimism.io/docs/governanc… — disclaimer: one of my projects just got ~$800k from them). The idea that people should pay for their infra when they make money is great, but I don't think it's sustainable because it's voluntary (i.e. it's charity).

• Trying to make public goods funding fluid and interoperable, you then have things like Hypercerts (hypercerts.org). It seems challenging to deploy, but I'm certainly curious about what they do and they have some cool research.

• And more recently, there's the Tea Protocol (tea.xyz). I haven't dug into it yet so I don't know. It's from the Homebrew guy and he certainly has stories about big companies using his work and not paying him.

So there are options on the table for the general problem of OSS funding, even if it's early days. It's worth noting that, irrespective of one's opinion of the web3 space, folks there are a lot less naive then their predecessors about funding.

Personally, I'm slightly sceptical that we can solve "OSS funding in general." Maybe if all package managers work together, but that's a long shot and circumventable. Paying for web infrastructure is easier and I think we have ways to make it work. (You all still here?)

The existing system pays for browsers using a tax on search (for defaults, for royalties, or through intra-company transfers). We need to preserve that system but also to fix it. Right now it's ad hoc and opaque, and has a lot of negative side-effects but fixing > baby+bathwater.

If we don't fix it, we're going to lose it precisely because of the harm it produces. Most of the value of search comes from the value of content on the web, so taxing at that point is logical and it's the system we have and can fix. But agreed ecommerce & social too (later).

Step 1: No more default browser or search. We've seen the damage these cause, people should win on being good not on paying their way. This bit has to be legally mandated (which is achievable). Choice screens (or equivalent) for both, standardised by the web community.

Step 2: You can only be eligible to be listed on a choice screen (as browser or search engine) if you agree to terms that establish a royalties system (and other nice things). All these revenues must be affected to web infrastructure (which is far from the case today).

Step 3: Establish a transparent, democratically controlled fund to distribute that money according to an open, accountable process. Most of that money can go to browser engines instead of browsers, + some earmarked for standards, research.

(How do you do democracy without a clear electorate is tricky, but there are ways — I won't make this even longer, though.) Step 4: Repeat the process for social, ecommerce, and ads. The more we spread it, the lower the tax can be.

This is ambitious and some parts of it are difficult. But we're custodians of critical public infrastructure for 5 billion people, I'd contend that we owe them bigger thinking than "it worked 20 years ago" or "I hope this big corporation doesn't eat my face" 😁 We can do better!