Open source governance

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Open source governance is a political philosophy which advocates the application of the philosophies of the open source and open content movements to democratic principles in order to enable any interested citizen to add to the creation of policy, as with a wiki document. Legislation is democratically opened to the general citizenry in this way, allowing policy development to benefit from the collected wisdom of the people as a whole.

Some envision this form of governance as a post-national "virtual state" governing structure, where policy-setting is decoupled from territorial management. Some models are significantly more sophisticated than a wiki, incorporating levels of control or scoring to mediate disputes. In any event, the idea demonstrates the still untapped potential of how open source philosophies can merge with government.

A typical core principle is the concept of a "central codebase" in the form of a set of policies that are maintained in a public registry and that are infinitely reproducible. "Distributions" of this policy-base are released (periodically or dynamically) for use in localities, which can apply "patches" to customize them for their own use. Localities are also able to cease subscribing to the central policy-base and "fork" it or adopt someone else's policy-base. In effect, the government stems from emergent cooperation and self-correction among members of a community. As the policies are put into practice in a number of localities, problems and issues are identified and solved, and where appropriate communicated back to the core.

Because so much information must be gathered for the overall decision-making process to succeed, however, technology may provide important forces leading to the type of empowerment needed for participation in this kind of government, especially those technological tools that enable community narratives and correspond to the accretion of knowledge.

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[edit] External links

[edit] Specifically about open source governance

[edit] About incorporating open source software into government

[edit] Wikibooks

[edit] Examples

  • www.futuremelbourne.com.au/wiki - a wiki-based collaborative environment for developing Melbourne's 10 year plan, which, during public consultation periods, enables the public to edit the plan with the same editing rights as city personnel and councilors.
  • New Zealand Police Act Review - a wiki used to solicit public commentary during the public consultation period of the acts review.
  • DemocracyLab - A Portland Oregon based nonprofit organization seeking to connect the values people hold to their positions on issues and the policies they advocate. Currently partnering with the Oregon 150 Project to help high school students in the state craft a vision of what Oregon should look like in 2059.

[edit] References


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