User:Rudxain/Object transparency movement

The Object Transparency Movement (OTM) is an initiative that advocates for source-available hardware and software, as the baseline for all products. That is, it posits the BASED opinion that any tool/appliance/app/device/consumable-item should be reviewable by anyone. Ideally, this movement requests and proposes international laws to enforce this baseline.

That short definition is too broad and vague, which is prone to misunderstanding and abuse. I'll clarify:

• Not anti-encryption: privacy is a human right, we don't want to violate that.
• Not mass surveillance: "reviewable products" refers to end products that are intended to be used by someone other than the manufacturer. If you, as an individual or company, make something for your own use, or use a product made by someone else, you are not required to provide any data about your instance of the product (unless required by law enforcement, as is already the case).
• Not anti-innovation: If, and only if, the source contains special trade secrets that can be protected by a patent, then those secrets are exempt from transparency enforcement. To prevent abuse, the law still applies to all other components of the product. Considering how patent-laws are a mess, this legislation would have the pre-requisite that patent-law be fixed first.

The main point of this movement is to create some sort of "Open Objects Act" that increases transparency for the long-term benefit of humanity, even if this "hurts" corporations.

At the very least, if the source can't be easily reviewed by non-technical people (and/or it's so complex that not even mid-level professionals can audit), there must be at least 1 way for non-technical people to trivially verify the provenance of the product. For software, one such system is reproducible builds. For physical products, such as hardware and food, I'm not sure how feasible/practical this is.

This movement is similar, but must not be confused with the Libre Software Movement. LSF/FSF advocates for people to only use and develop libre software, it doesn't try to change laws to enforce everything to be libre. In that sense, OTM is more extremist, but because source-availability is a lower bar than full-freedom, it is less extremist in that regard.

Right now, this is just something I wish to see happen! As one senator said in an AU:

My source is that I made it the fuck up!^[1]

• Digital Ownership Superact