- https://x.com/gov4git
- https://github.com/gov4git/gov4git
- https://www.linkedin.com/company/gov4git-decentralized-governance-for-git-communities
- Gov4Git
- Decentralized governance for git communities
Lifetime governance and management protocol for decentralized collaboration over git
A holistic economic mechanism — based on a plural currency and designed for established collaboration workflows — ensures a fair allocation of influence to community members over the life of the project.
Continuous polling for prioritizing community attention on project issues and pull requests, based on Quadratic Voting.
Plural referendums for approving important changes and pull requests.
Reward mechanisms — embodying prediction markets — incentivize thoughtful, strategic participation.
Deployable on any git hosting provider by non-technical users.
Out-of-the-box integration with GitHub and an API for building new integrations with git-based source authoring platforms.
Credibility requires transparent governance
Open-source communities need a credible form of plural governance in order to scale.
Fair and sustainable funding mechanisms require an accurate and fine-grain record of attribution.
Verifying the authenticity of a collaborative product requires a proof that every decision and contribution was performed according to governing community rules.
Plural mechanisms for adopting code changes are the ultimate measure against injection of malicious code or content.
Alignment across peers
At its core AI alignment is the act of collaboratively authoring training datasets while following plural arbitration practices.
In the age of AI conventional proofs of personhood (such as all forms of Turing tests) are becoming increasingly unreliable. Governance participation records open a new avenue for establishing public identity and asserting personhood. Unlike simple bilateral tests, faking successful participation in governance requires fooling entire communities of people over long periods of time — a feat beyond the grasp of AI.
Protocol and data standards are key to enabling interoperability and composeability across independent providers of data and services. Standards are developed by self-interested peering organizations, which need a fair arbitration mechanism to make progress.
Success of Open Source products depends on the collaboration of expert strangers. Transparent decision-making and arbitration mechanisms are essential for reducing friction and establishing trust.
Communities in distress — such as in war zones, disaster zones or under oppressive regimes — often self-organize for purposes of coordination and sourcing of vital information. To prevent misinformation and harm, it is critical that shared information is certified with records of provenance and peer review.
Progressive democracies, such as Taiwan, have proven the effectiveness of plural, bottom-up policymaking. To scale such efforts, communities need secure, transparent and verifiable tools to conduct their deliberations.
- Protocol Labs
- Microsoft Research
- GitHub
We are a team of professionals coming from different organizations, including Gov4Git Foundation, Protocol Labs, Microsoft Research, GitHub and others.
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Jason Entenmann Technical Program Manager, Special Projects at Microsoft Research.
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Leon Erichsen Political Scientist and Social Technologist. Currently at Gitcoin.
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Nathan Evans Principal Software Architect as Microsoft Research.
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Shrey Jain AI Safety Researcher at Microsoft Research & Responsible AI on Health AI. Research Affiliate at Harvard Democracy Renovation Center.
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Abigail Cabunoc Mayes Open Source Program Manager at GitHub.
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Petar Maymounkov Founder and CEO of Gov4Git Foundation. Previously Research Scientist at Protocol Labs.
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Theresa Merchant A freelance UX/Product Designer who is driven by impacting crucial problems with groundbreaking innovation.
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Kasia Sitkiewicz Staff Product Manager at GitHub.
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Tobin South PhD candidate at MIT. Fulbright Scholar.
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Shivani Thakur Designer and open-source contributor.
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Glen Weyl Research Lead for Plural Technology Collaboratory within Special Projects of Microsoft Research.
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Derek Worthen Software Engineer at Microsoft.
The Gov4Git Foundation is a not-for-profit organization, dedicated to research and development of standards and tools for plural and decentralized governance of collaborative communities.
We believe that widely accessible protocols for bottom-up community governance and coordination are a crucial structural necessity for building robust societies — that are resilient to the occasional disastrous failings of centralized institutions, and that can harness the power of citizen innovation and creativity.
Access to practical and cost-effective community governance will dramatically reshape a myriad of social enterprises, such as grassroot innovation and exchange of ideas, self-organization in the face of disasters, democratic deliberation and policymaking, development of shared standards for public infrastructure, and much more.
Our mission is to empower the formation and sustainability of inclusive collaborative communities around the globe regardless of their socioeconomic environment, geopolitical context or persuasion.