[greater good pledge] request for participation

[vsoch]

hey @FelixHenninger !

I'm creating a new initiative, The Greater Good that aims to highlight projects with no underlying incentives or ulterior motives - those that are "for the greater good." LabJS (I believe) fit strongly within the criteria, and I'm hoping that the community (you?) would like to participate. Participation simply means adding the community name to the pledge, and then (optionally) adding a badge to any associated project repos.

Details are provided at the page, and any maintainers / users here are welcome to also join the organization The Good Labs if open source transparency is important to them. It's still early (I'm going to be creating media and other community interactions) and right now I'm getting in touch with projects that I've worked with.

[FelixHenninger]

Hi Vanessa, many thanks for your suggestions! I like this a lot, because I would like to think of myself and our little project here as fitting your criteria, and I'm humbled that you thought of us that way ☺️

All of this being said, to be entirely honest, I'm not 100% sure we meet your criteria, specifically:

• As an individual, I do monetize this project to some degree: I give paid workshops, provide commercial consulting around study building, and have built and prioritized specific features on request, too. While any profits are largely reinvested (if through the caffeine fund and project stickers), some do help pay for rent, and I'm thankful for that.
• While this project is free to use, there are tools in the ecosystem that aren't (mostly because they involve greater running costs), for example Open Lab, which hosts lab.js studies (its author chose to offer it de-facto-free with a data usage cap, and I understand that -- keeping a resiliant hosting platform going takes a lot more resources than this project). I will happily pledge that I won't ever create lock-in, trick people into having to pay, or not release project sources for people to self-host, but I can't guarantee that I won't ever ask for money because there are features that might be useful, but which I can't afford to offer for free.
• This is definitely a worldwide community effort, but due to the asymmetry in contributions, the main contributors are dispersed across two adjacent offices, and I am currently gathering funds for professional consulting for areas that I don't know well (in my daydreams, we'd have the resources to support a few people to work on this, which might also break the criterion of an organic dispersed project). It pains me a little to admit it, and I'm working on changing it, but most of the project discussions don't ever leave my head.
• While they are not integral to its functioning, and can be recreated through a build flag, our 'official' deployment does get some minor priviledges (it uses the more extensive commercial version of Font Awesome instead of the open-source one).

So, all-in-all, I wholeheartedly love your approach, and am fully on board in principle, I wonder whether we meet the level of moral purity that you envision (based on a strict reading of the pledge). Maybe that means that we aren't such a good fit -- this is a labour of love, a scrappy project powered largely by my single-minded stubbornness, but there are costs involved, and the reality of my life is such that right now, anything that helps me afford to continue is welcome. I'm incredibly priviledged to work on this stuff, but not enough (or maybe I'm not a good enough person) to be fully unselfish. If this is the case, I'd like to work toward your criteria nonetheless, and would love to discuss how. Then again, maybe I've misunderstood the criteria (it's getting late around here), in which case I'd love to chat if you have a moment to clarify things 🙂.

Does any of this make sense? Kind regards, and the best of wishes,

-Felix

[vsoch]

hey @FelixHenninger ! I'd be happy to help answer some questions, and I apologize that I haven't written up a set of scenarios to help think about this.

In terms of charging for consulting and giving talks for your project, this is very common with open source, and it it fits within the guidelines of the criteria because LabJs doesn't exist to make you money, it exists to further scientific experimentation. The (relatively small compared to industry projects) funds that you likely bring in go to support continuation of the project, and you don't have larger (hidden) incentives to start a big company, etc. That said, if you changed your mind and went that route, that's okay, it would just mean removing your name from the list, no harm done.

With respect to tools that aren't free that use LabJS, those are a level above you (and not directly your project). In that you didn't create LabJS with intention for this purpose, you are still well within the criteria.

There is nothing in the criteria that has comment about using other projects, the main points are about the underlying incentives that drove you to create LabJS. The pledge doesn't say that there aren't costs involved, or even that there aren't funds that can help support the project. It's more about intention, incentives, and whether you have created and work to support LabJS for the greater good, or because you are a big company that wants users to pay for your cloud service, etc. I know it's the first :)

Does that answer your questions? If you think the criteria need further reworking, please contribute! I will hopefully get the example scenarios / FAQ up soon.

[FelixHenninger]

Hej Vanessa, thanks for your lightning-fast response! That makes total sense -- I'm 100% with you in that I'd happily pledge never to take part in a bait-and-switch manuever like you describe in your project docs. The thing I'm hesitant to promise is not to ever have any commercial interest (at least until I've kicked my soy latte addiction 😉).

If that's ok with you, I'm in -- as far as I can make this pledge on behalf of the community here (can I pledge as an individual/project lead? Regarding the project I'd need to think about how to manage getting some kind of consensus among the contributors, and we don't really have structures in place for that). If you like, I'd be happy to chat a bit more about the criteria; I think I get where you're coming from, and I support it, but it's a high bar; for example, I'd be hard-pressed to turn down an 'artificially seeded' development team if one ever came my way.

Best, -Felix

[vsoch]

Hey @FelixHenninger ! I just wrote up some FAQ that (I hope) helps to better answer some of your concerns:

https://good-labs.github.io/greater-good-pledge/faq/

The pledge isn't a promise - it's a statement that "right now my project is in spirit of the greater good." You are free to make mistakes, and change your mind completely. It offers a positive signal for your community (and some fun "Good Labs" goodies I have planned) and again, there is no issue with changing your mind at some point in the future!

Yes, you can pledge as a project lead! If there are others who are leaders for LabJS you might want to run it by them.

And yes please! I haven't versioned the criteria yet because I'm looking for feedback! Bring it in! You can open issues on https://github.com/good-labs/greater-good-pledge/issues and let me know if you have other questions you want to discuss here.

[vsoch]

Also see conversation here pydicom/pydicom#842 (comment) about lessening the focus on profits, and instead having it be about disclosure.