Vitalik Buterin Advocates for Replacing Public Good Concept with Open Source Products

The founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, has proposed moving away from the concept of «public goods» in favor of «open» products.

According to the programmer, public goods are especially crucial in digital decentralized systems; however, the concept is fraught with various issues and is prone to distortions.

Buterin pointed out that the term is often equated with government activities in public discourse. As a result, products are labeled as public goods not based on their actual functions and attributes, but rather on self-proclaimed intentions and claims of authorship.

He provided examples of companies that claim to create public goods while operating as commercial ventures with their own tokens.

«There’s nothing wrong with being a commercial project, and often there’s nothing wrong with launching your own token. However, it indicates something about the notion of ‘public good,’ which is so easily misinterpreted that today it often simply means ‘project,'» Buterin stated.

As an alternative, the programmer suggested shifting focus toward the concept of «open-source products.»

He noted that this category includes significant examples of «obvious public goods,» such as academic research in blockchain technologies and cryptographic protocols, technical documentation, educational materials, and open-source software like Ethereum clients.

In Buterin’s view, open-source projects are inherently public goods, and the definitions established by the Free Software Foundation and the Open Source Initiative have been accepted for decades.

He emphasized the importance of concentrating on creating the most valuable contributions for humanity; the label of «openness» should not be regarded as a virtue in itself.

It’s worth mentioning that in February, the Ethereum Foundation donated $1.25 million to support the legal defense of Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev.