MIECO 2023 - Episode 1
This is the second of a four-part series where we reflect on MIECO 2023.
Mozilla's Internet Ecosystem program (MIECO) funds innovators building a better internet. It lives at the intersection of basic research, tech development, and ethics.
In this episode, we look at how MIECO participants think about democratizing software, designing idealized primitives, reclaiming legacy standards, and shifting ecosystem incentives.
It's hard to imagine that a world with more pizza is anything other than a better, more joyful world.
Adam Bouhenguel
Democratizing Software
The episode begins with Adam discussing software democratization. Democratizing software means to find those technologies at the heart of society that move leverage to the people, the communities, the humans at the edge of the network.
It doesn't matter who you are or where you're from; You can take open source code and you'll have the same advantages that big companies have.
Justine Tunney
Building technology shouldn't be a zero-sum game. Open Source Software turns technology into a positive-sum game.
Open systems and Open Source Software are two of the best approaches we have so far.
Adam Bouhenguel
Designing Idealized Primitives
Jeff Lindsay reflects on his work at Docker, where they imagined building an idealized version of a system they had built before, knowing what they know now, if they could start over from scratch.
MIECO participants are similarly encouraged to imagine an internet unconstrained by today's standards and norms. What would the ideal internet look like?
Reclaiming Legacy Standards
Justine Tunney discusses the work she is doing with cosmopolitan to build actually portable executables: programs that run on all major operating systems.
I don't think that operating systems and architecture should divide us in the way that they traditionally have.
Justine Tunney
Shifting Ecosystem Incentives
The episode concludes with Imo's thoughts on incentives and value capture; a phenomena where platforms provide a service to build a network, but then capture and monopolize the value created by users of the network.
What if we focus mostly on value creation and enabling others to create value? If we can expand the pie big enough, everyone will find a piece of the pie and there will be enough to go around.
Imo Udom