Open Source Governance

The pull request sits there. Waiting for review. Waiting for consensus. Waiting for someone to say “yes, this is good enough.”

Transparent by Default

Open source operates on a simple principle: everything is visible. Every decision, every debate, every line of code changed.

Imagine if legislation worked the same way. Not just the final bill, but every amendment, every debate, every compromise tracked in real-time.

Code speaks for itself. A good patch from a first-time contributor carries the same weight as one from a maintainer.

But even open source struggles with gatekeeping, burnout, and power dynamics. The parallel to political systems is uncomfortable.

Don’t like the direction? Fork it. Take the code and build something different.

In politics, we call this revolution. In software, it’s Tuesday.

Many successful projects have “benevolent dictators for life” (BDFLs). It works—until it doesn’t.

Power corrupts. Even in spaces built on transparency and collaboration.

The question isn’t whether we need leaders. It’s how we ensure they remain accountable.