Open source philosophy is making a big impact on the world—including government. This article provides an overview of open source governance and how it ties in with general open government and open source software.
What Is Open Source Government?
Basically, open source governance takes the same principle in open source software, except to a whole new level: instead of software that anyone can create and modify, legislation can be produced. Most people imagine this in a wiki-style setting online, where edits have to be approved by a hierarchy of elected officials, or somehow scored, though there are many models in which this may work. So, everyone can directly participate in the government in a sort of mass collaboration, bringing it immediately into the hands of its citizens. Open source government is closely affiliated with the direct democracy movement, and is sometimes also referred to as open politics.
How Does Open Source Governance Work?
Open source governance is pretty easy to understand using the same terms as for any open source software. The “central codebase” of the system are the core policies, the Constitution, while the complete set of policies are released in periodic “distributions” for the citizens to look over and follow. “Patches” can be used to customize these policies at a local level. At every level, people self-correct, giving their input into the policies and changing them as they need. Some people have even referred to this system as democracy perfected.
Open Source Software
As you might imagine, the technology required for this is impressive, but we're approaching the point where this is possible. Internet for everyone with fast, reliable connections, massive servers—we're almost there. We've already got the tools for communication on a massive scale, as evidenced by almost any community you visit on the Internet. This can be seen in miniature in a variety of places on the Internet, such as MMORPs like A Tale In The Desert, where users make and debate the rules of the universe in which they play.
On a slightly less ambitious scale is running the entire infrastructure of the government on open source software- which is entirely maintained and developed by its citizens. Everyone is involved who wants to be involved, allowing for direct action by the people, for the people. This is discussed in more detail here.
Open Government
There's a broader movement at work here, recently started by Obama in an attempt to create a more transparent government, but existing in various theories since the 19th century. The big idea is to create a government where everything can be viewed and scrutinized publicly, and not shrouded in secrecy. This will make the government more accountable for its actions, and allow the citizens to more wisely choose its elected politicians and policies.
This is already widely happening at a local level within the United States, with completely open budgets and other information available. Some small businesses are also running themselves according to these principles. Larger Linux-associated open source projects and distros tend to be run with a style of open source governance as well. So, are we switching to open source government anytime soon? Maybe not. But aspects of it are already coming to fruition within the government, so don't be surprised if it starts making more of a presence within the next few decades.
For more information, check out Open Source Democracy, a free book by Douglas Rushkoff, available for download at Project Gutenberg. One group that is attempting to proliferate open source governance is Metagovernment, which also includes a number of smaller projects. Planet oGOSH! - Open Government Open Source Hacking - is a great aggregator for news related to open source governance.