Re: Proposal: Maintaining the Maintainers (Sid Kasivajhula)

[Corwin Brust]

Hi Siddhartha!

We're reaching out to let you know that your scheduled talk will start
shortly and we're ready to check you in for your live Q&A session.

If you aren't available for live Q&A please do reply to let us know,
otherwise you can join here and we'll get you sound-checked:

https://bbb.emacsverse.org/b/sac-inw-foz-rhu


Corwin
612-217-1742
612-695-4276 (signal)
corwin@bru.st

On Sat, Oct 1, 2022 at 2:00 AM Siddhartha Kasivajhula
<siddhartha.kasivajhula@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Thank you for organizing the conference. My proposal is below.
>
> Speaker name (and optional pronunciation) and preferred pronouns:
>
> Sid Kasivajhula (any pronouns, commonly he/him)
>
> Speaker availability and preferred Q&A approach:
>
> Live preferred, any OK.
>
> Availability: No constraints at this time.
>
> Speaker emergency contact information:
>
> skasivaj@gmail.com
> 229-444-4322
>
> Talk title: "Maintaining the Maintainers: Attribution as an Economic Model 
> for Open Source"
>
> Talk abstract:
>
> The problem of supporting open source software and contributors is a pressing 
> one, and one for which we don't have good solutions.
>
> So many developers today pour their creative energies into freely-distributed 
> works only to have those same works of passion turn into a pain in the neck 
> when they find themselves eternally on the hook to provide support in 
> exchange for minimal or no compensation, and often with limited assistance.
>
> Fundamentally, the reason it's this way is that traditional economic systems 
> operate on _supply and demand_ as the basis of value. In such systems, open 
> and unlimited availability translates into zero market value, and 
> consequently, open source enterprises are not economically sound. Even in 
> high profile projects, developers make a living purely through value added 
> services rather than from the core of the value of their contributions -- 
> that is, from the code they wrote. Since, from a market value standpoint, 
> _that code is worthless_.
>
> Copyright and patents (not to mention proprietary software) are an attempt to 
> address this within the existing economic model by imposing artificial 
> scarcity in order to induce market value. In principle, they also provide 
> safeguards against appropriation. On the other hand, the unlimited 
> availability of creative works is a profoundly good thing from the 
> perspective of maximizing value, and thus suppressing it is deeply misguided. 
> Organizations like the Free Software Foundation have campaigned against such 
> restrictions for some time now, for related reasons; nevertheless, the 
> problem of providing a viable economic basis, aside from these crude 
> attempts, remains unaddressed.
>
> Attribution-based economics is a new model that aims to remedy this state of 
> affairs by changing the basis of value from supply and demand to _collective 
> recognition_. This is facilitated by a process of "inheritance attribution" 
> where we collectively agree on the extent of inherence of ideas and works in 
> other (e.g. derivative) ideas and works, by means of transparent and evolving 
> standards. This model is capable of recognizing a much larger set of valuable 
> contributions, including forms of value that cannot be coerced into a 
> supply-and-demand equation. That is, in this model, there is no need to 
> artificially restrict availability in order for something to be considered 
> valuable. By virtue of the curious property that innovations on the process 
> are themselves subject to the process of recognition in a self-reflective 
> way, we gain accuracy, and by the property that agreed-upon standards apply 
> equally to all, we gain fairness -- guarantees that are at best tenuously 
> present in today's economic systems.
>
> This talk introduces some early experiments with attribution-based economics 
> in the Emacs community, and some initial proposals that point the way forward 
> on how, with your help, such a system might scale up to larger projects and 
> communities far beyond open source.
>
>
> - 5-10 minutes: (brief description/outline)
> Superficial description of the idea and core mechanisms, along with 
> summarizing the efforts so far toward setting it up for a small initial core 
> of Emacs (and some non-Emacs) packages.
>
> - 20 minutes: (brief description/outline)
> Same as above but more concrete details about the mechanisms involved, the 
> specific goals for social experiments in the community (e.g. how the 
> prototype packages like Symex.el aim to funnel financial contributions to 
> direct as well as upstream (e.g. packages like Paredit and Lispy) 
> contributors! Recognizing the giants on whose shoulders we stand is a core 
> part of the model). Details of financial model: how financial contributions 
> would be treated vs how code and other "work" contributions would be treated 
> -- similar to the startup dilution model, except that everyone has an 
> opportunity to participate and we all decide how it works!
>
> - 40 minutes: (brief description/outline)
> Probably would cover the same ground as the 20 minute version but in more 
> depth. I may take a different approach on the format, for instance there 
> might be a "workshop" component that may involve code, and we might look at 
> designs for software that could help implement this at scale.
>
>
> Speaker release:
>
>   By submitting this proposal, I agree that my presentation at
>   EmacsConf 2022 is subject to the following terms and conditions:
>
>   The EmacsConf organizers may capture audio and video (a "Recording")
>   of my presentation and any associated materials, which may include
>   slides, notes, transcripts, and prerecording(s) of my presentation
>   that I provide to the EmacsConf organizers.
>
>   I authorize the EmacsConf organizers to distribute, reproduce,
>   publicly display, and prepare derivative works of the Recording and
>   any derivative works of the Recording (the "Licensed Materials")
>   under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
>   International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license.
>
>   I grant to the EmacsConf organizers permission to use my name,
>   likeness, and biographic information in association with their use
>   of the Licensed Materials under the above license.
>
>   I represent that I have the authority to grant the above license to
>   the EmacsConf organizers.  If my presentation incorporates any
>   material owned by third parties, I represent that the material is
>   sublicensable to the EmacsConf organizers or that my use of them is
>   fair use.