FOSS Cooperativism
maddog's Doghouse

Cooperatives have a lot of power and flexibility that other business models lack. FOSS projects have leveraged this structure to create valuable and lasting products.
At a GNU/Linux Meetup recently, I met a young woman who presented me a book that contained a chapter she had authored. The book is titled Ours To Hack and Own [1], and it discusses "cooperativism," the economic practice of running a company as a cooperative, wherein either the employees or the customers are the owners.
Many readers might stop at this point and ask, "How does this relate to Free and Open Source Software?" FOSS projects are typically the epitome of cooperativism, so please continue reading.
Many years ago, when I was a university student, there was a small grocery store in the heart of Philadelphia that was a cooperative ("coop" for short). The people who regularly shopped there joined the coop, and the money they paid for groceries went directly to buying the groceries, paying the salaries of the employees, and taking care of other expenses. Some of the people who shopped there also formed a board of directors, who helped govern the coop. These governors made the rules for running the coop, hired the Executive Director (who in turn hired the rest of the staff), and determined the Executive Director's salary. The Executive Director was responsible for running the coop efficiently and making sure the cooperative either put excess revenue back into the coop, to make it better, or lowered the prices to make sure the food was the best for the lowest price. People who actually belonged to the coop (and showed their membership card) got a small percentage off the already low prices and could attend the membership meetings once a year to vote for board members. The coop had no "owners" to siphon off "profits" to make the goods more expensive.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

News
-
Fedora Continues 32-Bit Support
In a move that should come as a relief to some portions of the Linux community, Fedora will continue supporting 32-bit architecture.
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 Drops bcachefs
After a clash over some late fixes and disagreements between bcachefs's lead developer and Linus Torvalds, bachefs is out.
-
ONLYOFFICE v9 Embraces AI
Like nearly all office suites on the market (except LibreOffice), ONLYOFFICE has decided to go the AI route.
-
Two Local Privilege Escalation Flaws Discovered in Linux
Qualys researchers have discovered two local privilege escalation vulnerabilities that allow hackers to gain root privileges on major Linux distributions.
-
New TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro Powered by AMD Ryzen AI 300
The TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen10 offers serious power that is ready for your business, development, or entertainment needs.
-
Danish Ministry of Digital Affairs Transitions to Linux
Another major organization has decided to kick Microsoft Windows and Office to the curb in favor of Linux.
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.