I’m sitting here at Spyhouse watching the rain come down as the construction on Hennepin grinds to a halt. And as I sit here, I’m struck by how separate and connected we all are—I have my own booth, my own computer, my own connection to the internet, my own matcha latte and… so does everyone around me. And we’re all connected to those we love, those we judge, those we can’t stand, those who make us smile (and cry) and those who we can’t live without—everyone in this coffee shop, all at the same time. We live in a world of discontinuities and paradoxes. We’re connected and alone. We’re free and shackled. Happy and sad.

Our digital footprints are just the same. We’re all using a healthy mix of apps, a diverse dose of open and closed source underpinnings without us even being aware of it. The technology we use is either free and we’re the product—see Facebook, TikTok, Instagram or anywhere you see ads—or we’ve paid for it and we’re (hopefully) less of a product. We’re making these choices daily, sometimes unconsciously, and we live blissfully unaware of the complexities powering it all.

I’m by no means an activist or evangelist of any kind. I’m just a human, running a digital agency that has noble aspirations to leave the planet a little better than we found it. But… I am here to tell you that even though we live in a world of opposites, I truly believe that we can co-exist with technology that is weighted towards our own collective success and continued evolution as a species… and not towards the large corporations or even **ooooh scary** AI.

OK, the title: The Enduring Importance of Open Source. What the hell is Open Source? Why do I think it is so important? How is that importance related to any of these dichotomies and paradoxes I’ve mentioned? Thank you for thinking. And asking.

Open Source is jargon and most software developers think of code when they hear it. To me though, it has much broader connotations. I think “Open” instead of “Open Source” and… that makes it a much bigger idea that represents transparency, collaboration, community, free use and modification, and contribution back to humanity writ large. It’s inclusive and concerned with our species as a whole. And it includes not just software, but governments and their laws and processes, data, hardware, education, science and even AI. And it’s this philosophy that underpins our value of Be Open. Open is about doing work that will benefit everyone. We choose to be open by default; we opt for transparency, we share whenever possible.

Now to the dichotomies I mentioned… let’s take Google Maps as an example. You download it to your phone, for free… and you use it without even blinking an eye. Free to use means there is some mechanism that pays for the development and upkeep of the app. Google is not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts! First of all, they’re collecting your location information and using that to build a profile about you. And with the other information it has about you, it’s then serving ads to you in the maps app itself. A recommended restaurant here, a local auto parts store there. Maybe a reminder to see the last Mission Impossible flick at your local theater. Is there an alternative? Sure. Apple Maps. Curiously, it’s also free… although, you’ve indirectly paid for it by being invested in the Apple ecosystem. So, you won’t see any ads. But, your location is still being tracked, and you have to take Apple’s word that they’re not using it for anything nefarious. Both of these apps are closed—they’re opaque boxes of code, hosting, and related services that you are unable to inspect and as a result fully trust. The dichotomy here is between “free and useful” and “closed and unknown.” Are there other alternatives? Of course! Have you heard of OpenStreetMap? It’s a map of the world made by a community of people that contribute and maintain data that is public and owned by all of us. It’s just as good and viable a product as Google Maps or Apple Maps though it does not receive the distribution and eyeballs that these two have. Not only is the code of the app itself open, but so is everything else that is needed to support it. You can examine the internals of the app, check for yourself that it’s not collecting nefarious information and do with it what you wish.

Now, I’m not trying to get you to use OpenStreetMap as your default maps app (I don’t) but I am trying to make a point here about “open” and “closed” systems. They exist on a continuum—closed and opaque on one end, open and transparent on the other. And we get to choose where we want to live. Living at the extremes is unrealistic. There is no reason you can’t be somewhere in between, preferably leaning towards the open side. I choose to use Google Maps as my default because I really like how accurate its directions and traffic estimates are. At the same time, I choose to support the OpenStreetMap Foundation with a donation. I could choose to use the app, contribute to the source code, evangelize its values… it’s just easier to donate. And that’s okay!

Other than software, where would I like to see a greater prevalence of being Open? I have some ideas:

• Government, government, government. I’d love to see all government data at ALL levels—budgets, public services, climate, research… everything—freely available so we can leverage technology for a more transparent participatory government. And I’d like to see this across the globe! These governments belong to us, the people, nothing should be opaque to us. A good example is NOAA opening up global weather data to create new industry! Let’s do that with ALL the data!

• Open educational resources to make learning more affordable and equitable. If we were to make more educational resources open and freely available, we directly impact educational costs *ahem* expensive textbooks *ahem* and equity gaps. Do you know about the Open RN Project? This was a project funded by a grant from the Department of Education that developed Open nursing textbooks that is projected to save over 5,700 students a whopping $1.5 million annually. Every! Single! Year!

• Open source hardware for a modifiable and accessible physical world… wouldn’t it be great if we could publicly share design documentation for physical objects? I mean things like schematics, CAD files, functional instructions… then anyone could reproduce objects globally, democratizing manufacturing and increasing affordability. Projects like Open Source Ecology’s Global Village Construction Set aim to provide the blueprints for fifty essential industrial machines, offering a civilization starter kit—here’s a (now 14 year old) TED Talk about the Global Village Construction Set.

• Open Science! The scientific method is based on openly sharing theory and experiment in peer reviewed journals. Everyone should be able to reproduce the set of experiments that provide evidence to support a theory. I’d love to see all scientific research be published and accessible to all. We have so many complex global challenges, we need broad collaboration to accelerate our work. Remember OpenStreetMap from above? There’s HOT, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, that helps create vital resources for communities worldwide. For example, they have open end-to-end mapping technology for wildfires that anyone can use and everyone can benefit from. This is the kind of open citizen science I am talking about!

So. Open is everywhere. We just have to look and listen and be conscious humans. We can’t allow ourselves to feel bad or guilty that we can just “do everything with Open” because that’s an unrealistic expectation. We shouldn’t be righteous. We shouldn’t be on the extremes—totally open or totally closed. The middle is where all the interesting bits are. And I’d argue, it’s best for us to be skewed towards Open on the spectrum of “Open” to “Closed.”

Let’s support open initiatives, advocate for openness wherever we can and use our skills and talents to give back wherever we can. Small things are important, and when we all do them…. they compound!

You don’t have to be a zealot. You just have to have an Open mind.

A Feel Good Finisher—Have you eaten too many desserts lately? Or, ever? No, neither have I… which is why I did not know the word that described the resulting bloating from such hideous behavior. But, Faizan Zaki did and he knew how to spell it too!

You’re one of the OG members of Read Things That Matter, and for that, I am grateful. We’re starting anew with a different name “Open Threads” and with the desire to write and think more broadly about the world and less about TEN7 and our own business.

We will focus on a human-centered approach to technology, the importance of Open Source, the new AI age and how we’re navigating it… and other things as they come up. We’ll continue our jargon-free writing style. We’ll endeavor to be practical, pithy, kind and evidence based. We liked our old “feel good finisher” — we’re going to keep that. We’re hoping to go a bit deeper into a topic each time: join us in the comments! We’re not going to navel-gaze and we’re not going to try to sell you on our services like others do and like we’ve done in the past.

We are going to be ourselves, and let that speak for itself. We hope to meet you in real life someday.

Cheers,
Ivan