OpenCollective Thrive - Defusing Terminology - People Support Network

[abitrolly]

It doesn't feel right that people who just want to write Open Source and support their peers have to deal with century old regulations and rules that were set keep business in place from destroying everything in their pursuit of money (by the very definition of commercial company).

In the business environment, at least in post-soviet countries, the common mindset towards government regulations is "us vs them". But in Open Source, where code is an art that lives in heads of its maintainers, the government is not rival. And trying to play by the rules of "business vs government" game just feels so awkward. The level up of a commercial entity is to have dedicated lawyers sitting on short phone number with ministries, to know the regulations even before they appear, because they have a conflict. But people who don't have the money (because commercial companies earn all of them) have no resource, no motivation, and more importantly - no conflict and hence no interest to afford that - why we have to spend our valuable time on this commercial regulation bankruptcy? Yes, it is bankruptcy. If I have a terminal disease with a timespan that is rapidly approaching, I'd rather spend my time doing something useful. The bankruptcy is time - the only resource that I still have left to invest, and that golden gameplay just hits my head with its hammer.

OpenCollective role in helping people comply with regulations is the most invaluable. Without it things would be much worse, Even with it, there is still no feeling that things are getting better. There is no statistics that people in the network are feeling good. There is no button "I am not okay" to self-report to the statistics, and sponsored collectives like SustainOSS fail to cover hard topics, such as core-js story. Sometimes it feels like the culture of positivity is to avoid anything that disappoints people, and to filter everything negative with codes of conducts. Creating of supporting environment comes down as creating ignorance in its true original meaning.

If we could learn anything from the positive side of business culture, that would be metrics. KPI, OKR, data-based decisions - there are many buzzword and concepts, but main idea is that no matter how brilliant your goal is - if you can not measure it, you won't achieve it.

Here comes OpenCollective Thrive. The goal or the mission. Doughnut Economics speaks of the same things. I am sure the word will enter some UN/UNDP documents as well. But it all will be just mouth with the water is there is no metrics attached to it. The most important metric is "are you okay?". Then different parameters - "is there enough for you? food, shelter, lifestyle, healthcare". "what is your income?" - question that is strangely a taboo. "can you draw a diagram how do you participate in a gameplay of economics?"

The last question is hard to represent as a metrics. Probably nobody can, and that's where this discussion should have started.

What is our ways of household? What goal do we still live for here? Why do we opt-out? Is it our own decision, or there are just factors that force us that we can not overcome? White hatters call pathways to overcome obstacles "attack vectors". Series of steps to get to the target. "Series of steps" is most likely how it is called in "Q* learning", "project roadmap" is how it is probably called in business gameplay, and in hacker games that's "attack vector". Loaded terminology, and not the accurate one - the "vector" is a path in the graph.

OpenCollective follows loaded terminology too. Alien, alienating, erasing, forcing, biased. Fiscal hosts, brand, resourcing, reimburse expenses, transact without incorporating. In a true spirit of open source, you need to become an expert in the field to fix your problem. But the main question - Is commercial/business field is really the field we want to play? Do we need new generations of people to squeeze more and more of these concepts in their heads? Do we need a knitting club and starwars fans to talk about payment processor fees and limitations for fiscal hosts to support renting property in their countries? That looks like a cringe to me. But it doesn't have to be.

An ability to explain to starwar fans to explain how to exist on the material plane is essential. An ability for governmental officials plane to see people from fandom world is essential. OpenCollective role to explain that could be the vital for the growth of the Thrive ecosystem. Money is a tool, but it is not about the money. It is about building open people supporting networks. "... if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.". Gazed so much, now it is the perfect time to refactor the abyss into more collaborative space for earthlings and beyond.