Open source governance

From Metagovernment - Government of, by, and for all the people

The political philosophy of the Metagovernment project is most closely described by the concept of open source governance. Please see the Wikipedia page on open source governance for a generally accepted definition of this new concept.

Broadly, open source governance is based on the philosophies developed by the open source software movement and the derivative open content movement.

Open content has proven itself at least partially effective at producing value from large-scale collaboration projects. Proponents of open source governance expect that those same successes can be achieved or even surpassed when applied to human social governance.

It is proposed that government can be successful, and even vastly superior, if it has the direct participation of all of the governed. Open source governance incorporates the best features of direct democracy and tempers the drawbacks by use of a superior participation model and community structure.

Open source governance does not demand that every person participate in every decision. It simply allows people to participate as much or as little as they please in any decision in any community. It is thus expected that people will tend to channel themselves into specific areas of expertise and into specific communities. They will not be restricted to those areas, but they will become (powerless) "leaders" in those fields simply by their reputation (either informal or formal, as through a scoring system).