I remember a long discussion on the Telegram group on this. This term is vague and is used in open-washing and should be avoided in the context of FOSS. It’s as vague as “powered by AI”. It should just be removed from the FOSS vocabulary for good @Venkatesh_Hariharan @rahulporuri. These terms invite suspicion and scepticism naturally.
With this, I’ll stop any further comments on policy stuff here.
Aside:
I stopped participating in this thread because it just went off the rails. My original post/proposal on this thread was to stop the policy experiments at FOSS United as there’s no community participation. Without active community participation, it becomes a silo (as it has) and is susceptible to varying interpretations (as it has). What is working really well at FOSS United is community building and activities.
Stopping policy stuff at the org is what @rushabh also wants but then the thread just took a really weird tangent instead of something along the lines of “+1, let’s stop it”. This has left me really really confused. I’m personally worn out by every discussion turning into tirades (not just this thread, but several other matters, everything from IndiaFOSS to the conference platform the team has been working on to internships).
About Zerodha, don’t know what to do about the theory that Zerodha is furthering some nefarious agendas by funding the org, apart from stopping funding (which will kill the org because despite our best efforts, we have been unable to build sustainability via broader industry participation). This whole thing is really tiring especially because all funding is explicitly approved by the directors and the team (CC @wisharya). Anyone who suspects that there is some 4D chess going on 
, I’d urge them to speak to the fulltime employees, interns, and volunteers who’ve been running the org! Despite multiple attempts, we haven’t had volunteers step forward and be a part of governance apart from very few (@rahulporuri - @vishnus @realvinay volunteer and commit a lot of time in helping with governance and everything else, but they’re “compromised” because they’re at Zerodha, I guess?).
I’ve had several chats with a very confused and stressed out @wisharya and @mriya11 over the last couple of days. They, and the rest of the fulltime and intern team have been unfortunately at the receiving end of facing mounting confusion and stress from these back-and-forth tirades on N number of matters for more than a year. As directors, “leaders”, we’ve failed to ensure a stress-free work environment for them. Mental health of the people I work with is something I care very much about. I’ve in fact apologised to the team multiple times over the last year for not being able to get a handle on this.
The direction this thread has taken is the final straw for me, personally. Not the specific policy/patent/Aadhaar/DPI/DPG/Zerodha/whatever stuff, but the language and direction which @rushabh used which was not necessary. Not every discussion has to be provocative and devolve into never ending debates. Certain behaviour and language around IndiaFOSS that severely affected the mental wellbeing of the team was a big red flag for me, and it has finally culminated in this thread. Perhaps @wisharya and @mriya11 and the intern would like to share their experiences around some of the matters I am referring to, if they’re comfortable sharing.
I’ll end by reiterating that my original post on this thread was to stop policy stuff at the org as it has not gained community participation! This is in accordance with the agreement we had in a general meeting last year (some ~10 of us, two directors, full time employees, volunteers. The minutes should be somewhere on the forum @rahulporuri @mriya11?) where we had agreed that we would give it 12 more months to see if the policy experiments find community participation and then take a call. Personally, my belief that tech/policy is a critical matter has only grown stronger in the last three years with the government pumping out tech policies at a crazy rate. For FOSS and indie devs and small orgs, software patents specifically is something I personally worry about.
Anyway, that’s it. I’m personally done with this stuff. @rushabh you are free to run it like a democratic/republic without the deep tentacles of any capitalistic cabals! After all, the org originally was your idea.
This thread was just the straw that broke the camel’s back and it’s been building up for a while now. I’ve way too many productive projects that I’m interested in and getting sucked into tirades is something I’ve no need to do. I have candidly communicated with @rushabh that I’m unable to deal with a certain brand of constant, provocative, derisive (it is in my book) communication and language for matter after matter. The constant need to turn every matter into a raging debate, the volatility. There’s a reason why I don’t use social media! @rushabh candidly admits that it is his style of communication. Absolutely fair to have whatever style of communication, but it’s not something I am equipped to deal with or can appreciate. This kind of style is not good for my mental wellbeing personally, and it definitely isn’t good for the young team who have brought this up N times over the last couple of years. I hope they find it comfortable to come forward, speak, and share their thoughts.
The team have my full support to continue the amazing work they’ve been doing. The vibrant, distributed FOSS communities have my full appreciation. I’ll of course always happily support and participate in FOSS activities, projects, initiatives, and I’ll continue to encourage techies to pay attention to and participate in matters of tech/policy (not participating is a systemic societal risk). Also quite amusing that this org also has spiralled into high drama like so many other orgs .
Whew! 
I hope FOSS United sans Zerodha will not be the cunning, insidious org you think it is!
