Ethical Source: Open Source, Evolved.
The true measure of the success of open source is its real-world impact: how the technologies we develop can help promote positive social, cultural, and political change.
Open source provides the technological foundation of the internet, and an estimated 78% of all businesses globally leverage open source software in some form. The practice of open source involves working collaboratively and in the open, drawing on contributions from around the globe to create innovative new tools and technologies.
But its success has come with a price. Today, open source technologies are also being abused to sustain systems of inequity, violence, and oppression. It plays an increasingly critical role in surveillance capitalism, data harvesting, anti-immigrant violence, protester suppression, racist policing, the deployment of cruel and inhumane weapons, and other human rights abuses all over the world. And a growing number of open source developers want to do something about this abuse of their work.
The Organization for Ethical Source (OES) was founded to help open source communities ensure that their work is being used for social good and in service of human rights. We develop tools and standards to promote fair, ethical, and equitable outcomes for everyone who contributes to, benefits from, or is impacted by open source technologies.