Power Dynamics, Rug Pulls, and Other Impacts on FOSS Sustainability
333 | Sat 02 Aug 11:45 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Presented by
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Dr. Dawn Foster
@geekygirldawn
https://fastwonderblog.com/
Dr. Dawn Foster works as the Director of Data Science for CHAOSS where she is also a board member / maintainer. She is co-chair of CNCF TAG Contributor Strategy and an OpenUK board member. She has 20+ years of experience at companies like VMware and Intel with expertise in community, strategy, governance, metrics, and more. She has spoken at over 100 industry events and has a BS in computer science, an MBA, and a PhD. In her spare time she enjoys reading science fiction, running, and traveling.
Dr. Dawn Foster
@geekygirldawn
https://fastwonderblog.com/
Abstract
Power imbalances are everywhere, including in our FOSS projects. Corporations hold power over projects that result in relicensing, forks, and other disruptions. This talk will cover these power dynamics using research data from several case study projects and suggest steps that we can take to make better decisions about which FOSS projects to embrace.
Since the beginning of time, those in power have been able to use that power against the weak, often with little recourse. In feudalism, the powerful ruling class controlled the land leading to oppression and exploitation of the people doing the hard work of farming and protecting the land. This may sound familiar, since many FOSS projects similarly have the power consolidated in the hands of the few even when others with less power are doing most of the work. In today’s cloud native world, the power dynamics have gotten even more complex. Large cloud providers have the most power and can create service offerings based solely on FOSS projects while doing little to no real work on those projects. Smaller companies who are doing a significant amount of the development on a FOSS project have less power than the cloud providers, but many still have the power to relicense those projects. The many users, contributors, and even maintainers who have less power can feel like the rug has been pulled out from under them. We’ve recently seen an increase in relicensing of FOSS projects and other tensions within communities that are directly related to imbalances in power that cause disruption within our projects.
We have mechanisms, like forks, where those with less power can counter these power moves, regardless of the forms they take. The Elasticsearch, Redis, and Terraform relicensing resulted in the OpenSearch, Valkey, and OpenTofu forks. As part of an ongoing 1+ year research effort under the CHAOSS project, this talk will dive into the data for these six projects to illustrate these power dynamics.
As maintainers, contributors, and users of FOSS, we devote our most precious resource to these projects, time. We need for the projects that we spend time on to be sustainable over the long term to avoid wasting this precious resource. There is no way to predict which projects will be sustained over time, but this talk will contain detailed suggestions for how to look for warning signs. Who holds the power in the FOSS projects that we use and contribute to? How do they use that power? What governance processes are in place to provide checks and balances to avoid the misuse of that power? Beyond identifying warning signs, this talk will contain suggestions for how we can work within projects to help them become more sustainable. This talk will not only help people understand the power dynamics at play, but will also provide tangible steps that we can take as maintainers, contributors, and users to make better decisions about focusing our precious time on making our projects more sustainable.
Power imbalances are everywhere, including in our FOSS projects. Corporations hold power over projects that result in relicensing, forks, and other disruptions. This talk will cover these power dynamics using research data from several case study projects and suggest steps that we can take to make better decisions about which FOSS projects to embrace. Since the beginning of time, those in power have been able to use that power against the weak, often with little recourse. In feudalism, the powerful ruling class controlled the land leading to oppression and exploitation of the people doing the hard work of farming and protecting the land. This may sound familiar, since many FOSS projects similarly have the power consolidated in the hands of the few even when others with less power are doing most of the work. In today’s cloud native world, the power dynamics have gotten even more complex. Large cloud providers have the most power and can create service offerings based solely on FOSS projects while doing little to no real work on those projects. Smaller companies who are doing a significant amount of the development on a FOSS project have less power than the cloud providers, but many still have the power to relicense those projects. The many users, contributors, and even maintainers who have less power can feel like the rug has been pulled out from under them. We’ve recently seen an increase in relicensing of FOSS projects and other tensions within communities that are directly related to imbalances in power that cause disruption within our projects. We have mechanisms, like forks, where those with less power can counter these power moves, regardless of the forms they take. The Elasticsearch, Redis, and Terraform relicensing resulted in the OpenSearch, Valkey, and OpenTofu forks. As part of an ongoing 1+ year research effort under the CHAOSS project, this talk will dive into the data for these six projects to illustrate these power dynamics. As maintainers, contributors, and users of FOSS, we devote our most precious resource to these projects, time. We need for the projects that we spend time on to be sustainable over the long term to avoid wasting this precious resource. There is no way to predict which projects will be sustained over time, but this talk will contain detailed suggestions for how to look for warning signs. Who holds the power in the FOSS projects that we use and contribute to? How do they use that power? What governance processes are in place to provide checks and balances to avoid the misuse of that power? Beyond identifying warning signs, this talk will contain suggestions for how we can work within projects to help them become more sustainable. This talk will not only help people understand the power dynamics at play, but will also provide tangible steps that we can take as maintainers, contributors, and users to make better decisions about focusing our precious time on making our projects more sustainable.