Building Creative Commons: The Five Pillars of Open Source Finance
AHOY, THERE BE A CLOSED SYSTEM TO OPEN This is an article about Open Source Finance. It's an idea I first sketched out at a talk I gave at the Open Data Institute in London. By 'Open Source Finance', I don't just mean open source software programmes. Rather, I'm referring to something much deeper and broader. It's a way of framing an overall change we might want to see in the financial system. To illustrate this, I set up an analogy between computer systems and economic systems, and I then explore what financial 'code' might be. I then sketch out the five pillars that could underpin an open finance movement. Computer systems as economies Computer systems are great metaphors for economic systems. That's because, in a sense, a computer is a microcosm of our economy, albeit one that is a lot more predictable and controllable. Economies, at some basic level, are based upon people using energy to extract useful stuff from the earth, using tools, proce...