Open ownership
Open source gives you ownership of your copy. Open ownership gives you a share in the project. One is a copy on your disk; the other is a vote on where it goes.
We're not reinventing open source
We add one clause, and here's exactly what it is. Everything else — the full source, the right to run it, change it, share it and fork it, the messy, argumentative way projects actually get built — stays as it is, because that part works.
The one clause: each person who uses the software belongs to a member organisation, does a five-minute declaration once a year, and pays their dues or declares hardship.
That's the only difference. The condition sits on people, not on the code or on any organisation. So there's nothing to fork your way out of, and that's what makes it safe to leave everything else completely free.
Why bother
Open source sets the price of using software at zero. For a small library, that's ideal. For big, broad software that needs steady money to stay good and secure, a price of zero leaves two ways to pay: volunteers, or companies with reasons of their own. And whoever pays, steers.
Open ownership is a third way. A little from everyone, so the people who use the software are the people who fund it, and the people who fund it are the people who own it. Funding and control come in through the same door, one person at a time.
What holds it up
A trust
Holds the copyright and the licence. It can never sell them, nobody can profit from them, and it has almost no decisions to make.
The members
Individual people, one vote each. They set the price once a year as part of their declaration.
Everything in between
Member organisations, forums, committees: useful, replaceable, and none of it load-bearing.
It isn't for everything
Open ownership is for big, broad, user-facing software that needs sustained money to be good. It's not a replacement for open source, and we don't expect it to become one. If you maintain a small library, stay with MIT. Is it for your project?
And it isn't open source
The licence puts a condition on use, so by definition it's source available, not open source. We're not applying for OSI approval and we'd rather say so up front than have anyone feel misled.
The first project to use open ownership is Kanecta. The idea and the licence are written to be used by any project that fits.