Shout or Leave? - Open-source community governance

I’ve often thought that open-source contributions are towards “social good”, but I also realize it is a fairly naïve way to look at the open-source world. I was listening to a friend’s frustration of getting people to work together. She is a social worker and now in a political party is trying to make people work together to do “social good”. Participating closely in 3 fairly large open-source communities and following a few others closely, she asked me how I saw it works in the world of open-source. That’s where I thought it might be good to post my thoughts.

Open-source in its literal definition is just putting your code out. Doesn’t mean anything more. Though we have associated a few implicit connotations with the concept. Particularly, that there is an open, bazaar-like mode of working, which can be thought of as similar to the concept of democracy. But as we can see from the political conditions in different parts of the world, democracy isn’t one single thing. It is indeed a group of people working together towards a common goal, ideally each person having an equal weight of vote. But as the world is not idealistic, the more pragmatic meritocracy is acceptable. The open-source world looks at meritocracy through a number of aspects like code contributions, advocacy, documentations etc. with the general focus being towards getting work done. Yet, most research and discussion around open-source misses out on the aspect of power, tradition and culture of the communities that political scientists and sociologists have talked about for a long time. Open-source communities like other human networks have a vision of meritocracy and sometimes evangelize this vision, but often find it hard to practice.

Some open-source communities do have a BDFL, while others generally play by the resources rule. Resources include money, people, ideas and the group that possess these are generally considered more powerful. Some companies because of their “cool” products automatically make “cool” suggestions to the community and their work is “cooler” than the average contributor’s work. Because a developer works for a “cool” company, does not necessarily mean that every developer from that company has better skills than your average contributor. Some open-source communities value context-of-use, while others value “de-contextualization”. Many researchers have highlighted that domain-specific open-source software communities are better suited by being contextual. While, this challenge of being contextual and translating the contextual knowledge to a de-contextual developer, is also well studied, it is really not well enacted in domain-specific open-source community governance. Governance relates to decisions that define expectations, grant power, or verify performance. It consists of either a separate process or part of decision-making or leadership processes. Thus, when the next time you read about OSS 2.0, realize that governance plays a vital role in the challenge of domain-specific open-source communities.

Open-source communities are typically expected to work around an open-source license, some code of conduct pages and roles of developers. These alone, as we see from functioning democracies is fairly inadequate – judiciary, legislature, and executive. Media is often considered the 4th pillar of democracy. A vehicle that allows voices to reflect on how the other 3-pillars are doing. Good governance often comes from the fact that reflective voices are heard, understood and acted upon.

Yet, power plays an important role in sustainability or growth of a community. As an independent contributor (just as a citizen in democracy), one can either look at the power play, raise voice so that others see it or get fed up and leave.

China bans wikileaks cablegate pages

The wikileaks release of the US cables is indeed the biggest newsmaker in world politics at the moment. Their leaks have shown the two-faced nature of diplomats, that we probably all knew, but never knew for certain. Nonetheless it is a major leak that could as some believe also result in World War III

The US government is clearly in a fix with the release of the cables and is trying to save face wherever it can by contacting its embassies around the world. Also Obama has said that the US government will exercise legal actions against wikileaks and its founder and run an embargo on this “irresponsible” and uncontrollable media.

But on the other side of the globe, China is clever enough to control the media. The Great fireWall of China just blocked the wikileaks cablegate pages and none from inside of China is able to view those pages on the internet. Now, if only the US learnt its lesson and started to whip naughty journalists and crazy activists, the world would have been a better… and safer place!!

Women more respected in Pakistan & Bangladesh than in India

I’ve been pretty involved in health information and monitoring the state of affairs in that domain, but this is something I believe is as critical for humanness. The UNDP just came out with their Human Development Report (HDR) and celebrating its 20th Anniversary… I would like to congratulate guys at UNDP for the great work with this report and its indeed an excellent piece of work that has been going on for the last 2 decades. Also who better than Amartya Sen introducing us to the report.

The report is one of the most complete ways to give the overall picture to development. There are obviously critiques to how development is measured and qualitative analysis is sometimes required to study the cases. Nevertheless, it is indeed rich in data for looking at how development is measured. The report covers Health (… and life expectancy), Knowledge/Education, Standards of living, Innovation, Economic growth, Empowerment, Gender, Income inequalities, Security… and creates an index comparing these at a benchmark number of 10.

India ranks 119 on the Human Development Index and highlights somewhat of a sad story, when we are so happy celebrating our growth rates and world reputation success, a lot many things are lacking. May be even aggravating - in this view of achieving only economic growth and race for money and world power! Sure, we are doing great in democracy and political freedoms, but what about the many unfreedoms of gender and income inequalities. I would say it’s a shame that women feel more respected in Pakistan than in India, although we are the world’s largest democracy in the world. More and more as you read the whole report…

Sitting in Norway and reading the HDR feels like we are miles away in India…, but even in closer geographies (e.g. SriLanka), I feel we are very far off from our potential as a society!!

Indian Sues Google, Yahoo & Microsoft For Sex-Selection Ads

While India is celebrating its 61st Independence Day today, among other problems, Gender Inequality and Gender Imbalance is a major problem for the future of  India. And somewhere between the lines of the so-called non-intrusive ads that you see on web pages, techniques for sex-selection for an unborn child is being promoted. Or so thinks Sabu Mathew George, the petitioner in a case filed in Supreme Court of India against web advertising and search companies like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.

Gender Imbalance is a major problem that faces India in the next few decades. Although the Indian society at large is still unaware of the problem, from the statistics and ground work that I’ve seen while working with Men Against Violence & Abuse, the problem is a severe one and could become adverse in the coming decades. Gender Imbalance is a man-made phenomenon in India where an unborn child’s sex is determined before birth and if the child is a female, the pregnancy is aborted. It is this ruthless murder of unborn females that in some states the sex ratio for males to females is less than 0.7

But that is not what we are here to talk. Sabu Mathew George has filed a petition in the Supreme Court of India that certain ads displayed on search results and web advertise the process of sex-selection. The Supreme Court has sent notices in this regard to Google, Yahoo and Microsoft in this regard and would like to hear their side of the story. The Indian law’s on Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques Act. states that advertisement of products and techniques to aid in the selection of an unborn child's sex is an offense. Thus, advertisement of such products are not shown in Print-media,  TV and Radio ads.

India’s Health Ministry and Ministry of Communications & IT have also been made respondents in the case because they have been non-responsive in stopping such ads. It should be interesting to see how these tech companies respond. If you look at it from a technical standpoint, such ads could have been easily spotted and not shown by these companies. There is already a procedure by which the content in ads is checked by these companies and can prevent such ads to be shown. Even the search results are moderated according to local laws and standards and it isn’t uncommon that the Chinese government have successfully changed the behavior of these companies.

May be these tech companies haven’t realized the magnitude of the problem or just ignored the law. But we are surely going to find out, if the Supreme Court holds them liable for such instances. Or can web companies just say that they are mediators and not content owners and get away.

Google had earlier stated in its Public Policy Blog that, “Think about the telephone system. We don't hold the telephone company liable when two callers use the phone lines to plan a crime. For the same reasons, it's a fundamental principle of the Internet that you don't blame the neutral intermediaries for the actions of their customers. Rather, the standard recognized worldwide is that Internet intermediaries are responsible to take action when they are put on notice of unlawful content through proper legal channels.”

Now that’s as awful analogy!! Telephone system is a one-to-one or conference system, where you don’t have your comments recorded for the entire world to look at. Neither can it be technically feasible nor morally acceptable to hear every call being made. Whereas content on the Internet, that is displayed as search results can very well be observed and banned, like has been done in China. In India, you have laws to stop it in other forms of media, then why should the Internet be any different?? There are obvious “report abuse” links to results and web displayed content. But the utter slowness in the response of such services is another reason why the system needs to be fixed on both the government side, tech-side and the users-side.

Amit Paul Wins Indian Idol 3

Update 2: 24th Sep, 2007 ==> The Future For Amit Paul. Read here the story about update on what's he doing after Indian Idol

Update: 23rd Sep, 2007 23:14hrs ==> Prashant Tamang is actually declared the Indian Idol.

Amit Paul wins Indian Idol 3!! Yeah, so all fans start dancing!!... After some hard dancing, a few tired individuals come to me and ask, the results aren't out yet, so why r we dancing??... how do you know Amit wins??.. and a few readers ask, what's Indian Idol doing at a Tech Blog!!??

For those who don't know what's the Indian Idol ==> Indian Idol is a remake of American Idol for Indian participants and Indian audience, with a similar format and voting techniques. And the point of voting brings us to technology. Voting to Indian Idol requires you to either send SMS, Call phone numbers, Go to their website!! All of these voting techniques use technology. It's an easy and great way to connect to your audience, but not the most reliable way to get votes!! And when I say unreliable, believe me, the Indian Idol 3 voting system is a complete junk (Don't ask what I mean by junk, do some R&D to find out) !! Check Indian Idol voting site and you'll know what I mean. They supposedly charge Rs.2/- per vote, but I haven't paid a single penny till now!! Think about the SMS system. SMS is basically a technology of sending text messages and there are different ways to send it. Not just from phones, but also other ways. Indian Idol may have restricted web SMS, but then still there are numerous ways to breach the SMS system. I've personally done a few over the years, and sure that others know many more SMS hacking techniques than I do!!

The entire voting procedure is so much dependent on different telecom companies and you can never be sure what's happening in those telecom offices. Why couldn't you just bribe some telecom technician and walk your way to victory?? Indian Idol 3 or for that matter Saregamapa 2007 (another singing show judged by public voting) during the last episodes becomes a competition between states/cities. The contestants receive support from politicians, corporates, social activists and from the local residents. It becomes a prestige issue for an entire state and when this happens, you know what the politicians can do with public telecom companies!! Jammed Lines, Network Congestion are some common problems with technology being used in such a voting system. So when there's a network failure in a participant's home ground, injustice happens to him!!

So what do you do to solve the problems?? Accept only one vote per week from one phone. But that would mean less revenue for the TV channels and Telecom companies. They are running a business with these shows, and very less chance that such a thing will happen. Build more secure websites for public voting. "Anything that is built can be broken", but then I expect at least a tough time for the person breaking the system. You could stop public voting and let the judges decide whose best. But then I think the essence and beauty of democracy is something special!!

When winning and losing depends upon technology, it is not a very healthy thing for talent. You can easily manipulate your votes, and I know for sure it has been manipulated in the past and will be manipulated in the future. I have been voting for Amit Paul from the beginning of the contest, but you never know how technology has been bent. I'm not saying that Prashant doesn't have the fan following. May be his fans are more fanatic. But I'm saying that technology is not completely perfect like a lot of other things in life!!