Let’s Talk with David Eaves, Part III

In the third and final portion of our conversation, open source and open government advocate David Eaves expands on his observations about power structures within open source communities, delineating how authority is delegated within large projects. We also touch on the limits of transparency as it relates to fostering growth within a collaborative project, and how conceptions of open source as a whole may need embrace a greater degree of complexity in order to improve government processes.

JI: Would you say that open source essentially levels the playing field — that the traditional power structure is no longer relevant in an open source environment?

DE: There are huge power structures — this is where feminist theory is so needed in open source — there are huge power structures in open source. People try to pretend there is not. They do a disservice to those who are unfamiliar with these systems who are trying to understand them. The more important part is how power manifests itself. In a traditional organization as manager, you have authority delegated to you by those who are higher up. In an open source community, authority is appointed to you by the community. We brought people into the community and told them that one skill set was valued, which is their ability to code, but what gets you promoted is your ability to influence others. And we don’t do anything to support people in developing that skill.

JI: In terms of transparency and open government, do you think there is a limit?

DE: Here’s how I would define it: there’s two things. One, there’s a whole privacy and security angle, and I want to be really respectful of that. I don’t believe we should be putting people’s private information online. On the other hand, one of the real problems in open source is that any new idea is generally trashed and declared stupid by the overwhelming majority of the community. Things need a safe place to incubate in order to grow and become something that is interesting and viable.

People don’t understand what open source is. There’s a lot of, “Oh, people are going to do stuff for free.” And that’s not what it is. Or, “Oh, there’s no power structure.” That’s not what it is. There’s a real naïve, utopian vision of what open source is, and not always a willingness to understand the complexity of that system. And that’s what needs to change. People who think open source is all about transparency miss a great deal. There’s a lot of things that happen off the grid in open source, and many of those things are critical to the innovation cycle. We need to look at where that’s taking place and why it’s taking place, and see what parts of that cycle need to be replicated in government.