An alliance built on human-focused drivers
The Omnifi Foundation is a non-profit cooperative which supports enterprise organisations through an open alliance initiative, focused on the development of technologies where federation, interoperability, and do-no-harm are core values.
Our focus is always human-first, with enterprise economics being a complementary consideration. By complementary consideration, we mean that we work to help and enable organisations to create economically-viable solutions, products, and services built on data, without sacrificing the humans who create and own this data.
The governance problem in open source
Open source software has transformed how we build digital technology. The collaborative model—where code is shared freely and improved collectively—has produced much of the infrastructure that powers the modern internet. Yet beneath this success lies a growing tension: the governance structures surrounding open source have not evolved to match the scale and importance of what’s being built.
Maintainer burnout and sustainability
The open source ecosystem depends heavily on individual maintainers who often work without compensation, recognition, or organisational support. Projects that millions of people and thousands of companies rely upon are frequently maintained by small groups of volunteers in their spare time.
This isn’t sustainable. Maintainer burnout is endemic. Critical security vulnerabilities go unpatched because the people responsible for fixing them are exhausted, under-resourced, or have moved on entirely. The Heartbleed vulnerability in OpenSSL—a library used by hundreds of millions of systems—was maintained by a handful of people before it became a global security crisis.
The problem isn’t that maintainers lack dedication. It’s that the governance and economic models surrounding open source don’t adequately support the people doing the work.
Corporate capture and extraction
As open source has become essential infrastructure, large corporations have found ways to extract enormous value from it while contributing disproportionately little in return. The dynamics are well-documented: companies build billion-pound businesses on open source foundations, employ developers who contribute to projects during work hours, then shift priorities or lay off those developers when economic conditions change.
More concerning are the patterns of corporate capture, where companies gain controlling influence over projects and steer them toward commercial interests that may not align with the broader community. Governance structures that worked when projects were small and community-driven often fail to protect against these dynamics at scale.
The recent controversies around HashiCorp’s license changes, the Redis relicensing, and similar moves by other companies reflect a deeper dysfunction: the open source model creates value that the governance structures can’t protect or distribute fairly.
Foundation limitations
Software foundations were created to address some of these problems—providing legal protection, infrastructure, and governance frameworks for open source projects. Organisations like the Apache Software Foundation, Linux Foundation, and Eclipse Foundation have done valuable work in this space.
But foundations have limitations. Many operate primarily as legal and administrative umbrellas rather than active governors. Their structures often favour corporate members who can afford significant membership fees, potentially reproducing the power imbalances they were meant to address. And their governance models—typically based on meritocracy and technical contribution—can exclude voices that don’t fit traditional patterns of open source participation.
The result is a gap between what open source needs and what current governance structures provide.
Rethinking governance for human outcomes
We believe open source governance needs to be redesigned around human outcomes rather than purely technical or economic metrics. This means asking different questions:
- Who benefits? Not just who uses the software, but who captures the value it creates and how that value is distributed.
- Who decides? Not just who has commit access, but who shapes the direction of projects and whose interests are represented in those decisions.
- Who is protected? Not just intellectual property protection, but protection for maintainers, contributors, and the communities that depend on projects.
- Who is accountable? Not just for code quality, but for the broader impacts of how software is developed and deployed.
These questions lead to governance models that look quite different from current approaches.
Beyond meritocracy
Traditional open source governance often relies on meritocracy—the idea that influence should be proportional to contribution, typically measured by code commits. This model has strengths: it rewards effort and creates clear pathways for advancement.
But meritocracy also has serious limitations. It privileges certain types of contribution (code) over others (documentation, community management, user support). It advantages people with time and resources to contribute—typically employed developers at well-funded companies—over those with valuable perspectives but fewer resources. And it can create insider cultures that are unwelcoming to newcomers, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds.
Human-focused governance needs to recognise and value diverse forms of contribution, create accessible pathways for participation, and actively work against the concentration of power in small groups.
Stakeholder representation
Projects don’t just have contributors—they have stakeholders. The people who use software, the communities affected by how it’s deployed, the maintainers whose wellbeing depends on sustainable practices—all have legitimate interests in how projects are governed.
Current governance models rarely represent these stakeholders adequately. User communities have limited voice in project direction. Affected communities—those who experience the downstream effects of how software is used—typically have no voice at all. Maintainer wellbeing is an afterthought rather than a central concern.
We need governance structures that give stakeholders meaningful representation, not just token consultation. This might mean reserved seats for different stakeholder groups, participatory budgeting for project resources, or other mechanisms that distribute power more broadly.
Economic sustainability
Governance and economics are inseparable. Projects can’t be governed effectively if they’re chronically under-resourced, and resources can’t be allocated fairly without good governance.
Current models for funding open source—corporate sponsorship, grants, donations—are inadequate and unreliable. They create dependencies that can distort project priorities and leave maintainers vulnerable when funding disappears.
Sustainable open source needs economic models that generate reliable resources, distribute them fairly, and insulate projects from the pressures that lead to corporate capture or maintainer exploitation. This might include cooperative ownership models, community-controlled funds, or other mechanisms that align economic incentives with human outcomes.
The alliance approach
At Omnifi, we’re experimenting with an alternative: an alliance model built on cooperative principles and focused explicitly on human outcomes.
Cooperative foundations
Our cooperative structure isn’t just a legal form—it’s a governance philosophy. Cooperatives are owned and controlled by their members, with democratic decision-making and equitable distribution of benefits. This structure resists the concentration of power that undermines many open source projects.
The cooperative model provides:
- Democratic control — Major decisions are made by members, not by whoever controls the most resources
- Equitable benefits — Value created by the cooperative is shared among members rather than extracted by external parties
- Long-term orientation — Without pressure for short-term returns, cooperatives can invest in sustainability
- Accountability — Governance is transparent and leaders are accountable to members
These principles apply not just to our organisation, but to how we approach the projects we support.
Federation over centralisation
We believe the future of open source governance is federated—many interconnected communities making their own decisions while collaborating on shared infrastructure and standards. This model preserves autonomy while enabling coordination.
Federation mirrors how the internet itself was designed: decentralised, resilient, and resistant to single points of control. It allows different communities to experiment with governance approaches that work for their contexts while learning from each other.
Our alliance operates on federated principles. Participating organisations maintain their autonomy while committing to shared values and interoperability. This creates a network of aligned projects without imposing uniformity.
Interoperability as a value
Technical interoperability—the ability for systems to work together—has always been an open source value. We extend this to governance interoperability: the ability for different organisations and projects to collaborate effectively despite having different internal structures.
This requires:
- Shared standards — Not just technical standards, but standards for how we work together, resolve conflicts, and make collective decisions
- Clear interfaces — Well-defined ways for organisations to participate in alliance activities without requiring internal restructuring
- Mutual recognition — Respect for different governance approaches while maintaining accountability to shared values
Interoperability creates the conditions for a genuine ecosystem rather than a collection of isolated projects.
Do no harm
We’ve adopted “do no harm” as a core governance principle. This isn’t just an ethical aspiration—it has practical implications for how we evaluate projects, partnerships, and decisions.
Do no harm means:
- Privacy by default — Projects must respect people’s data and not enable surveillance
- Accessibility requirements — Solutions must be usable by people with diverse abilities and contexts
- Environmental consideration — We account for the ecological impact of what we build
- Community impact assessment — We consider how projects might affect vulnerable communities
These aren’t afterthoughts or nice-to-haves. They’re governance requirements that shape which projects we support and how we support them.
Working with enterprises
Our alliance includes enterprise organisations, and we believe this is essential for impact. Enterprises control significant resources and make decisions that affect millions of people. Engaging them constructively is more effective than treating them as adversaries.
But our engagement is on different terms than typical enterprise-open source relationships.
Human-first economics
We work with organisations to create economically viable solutions without sacrificing the humans who create and own data. This often requires challenging assumptions about what’s necessary for business success.
In our experience, privacy-first architecture frequently improves cost-effectiveness. When you’re not collecting and storing unnecessary data, infrastructure costs decrease. When you’re not managing consent and compliance for invasive data practices, legal and operational costs decrease. When you’re building trust with the people you serve, customer acquisition and retention costs decrease.
We help organisations see these economics clearly and build systems that work for both the business and the humans it serves.
Sustainable partnerships
Our enterprise partnerships are structured to be sustainable for all parties. We don’t accept funding that comes with strings attached to governance decisions. We don’t prioritise enterprise interests over community interests. We maintain independence even when working closely with well-resourced partners.
This sometimes means turning down money or walking away from relationships that would compromise our values. The cooperative structure makes this possible—we’re accountable to our members and mission, not to whoever offers the largest contract.
Capacity building
We’re not just providing services—we’re building capacity. Our goal is for partner organisations to develop their own capabilities for human-centred technology development, not to create dependency on us.
This means we share knowledge openly, help organisations build internal expertise, and support them in contributing to the broader ecosystem. Success for us is when partners become active participants in the alliance, not just consumers of what we provide.
The path forward
Changing open source governance won’t happen through a single organisation or initiative. It requires a movement—many people and organisations working toward similar goals, learning from each other, and building alternatives to current models.
We’re optimistic about this movement. The problems with current governance are increasingly visible. More people are asking fundamental questions about who benefits from open source, who controls it, and whether current models are sustainable. Alternative approaches—cooperatives, community ownership, stakeholder governance—are gaining attention and credibility.
Our contribution is one experiment among many. We’re trying to demonstrate that human-focused governance can work in practice, that enterprises can be engaged constructively without compromising values, and that federation and interoperability can create strength without requiring uniformity.
We don’t have all the answers. But we’re committed to developing better questions and sharing what we learn along the way.
Join the alliance
If you share our concerns about open source governance and our commitment to human-focused alternatives, we’d welcome your involvement. The alliance is open to:
- Organisations exploring different approaches to technology governance and development
- Projects looking for a supportive home with aligned values
- Individuals who want to contribute to building better models
Learn more about membership, explore our projects, or get in touch to start a conversation.
The technology we build shapes the world we live in. Let’s govern it accordingly.