What Gandhi and Open Source Have in Common

One of the greatest polymath and genius of all times, Albert Einstein, once said about the political views of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, called as Mahatma Gandhi by his millions of followers, that “I believe that Gandhi’s views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time.”. Going over his autobiography, “The story of my experiments with truth”, I find Gandhi as one of the most inspiring personalities that I have read about. As someone who works in the Information Technology sector with a keen interest in Open source in general and Linux Operating system in particular, I could vividly draw parallels between the ideology of this great political and intellectual Giant and the ideology that powers the Open source methodology.I have come to a conclusive opinion that had Gandhi lived today or during the times of technology and software boom, he would have become a “brand ambassador” and a thorough supporter of the open source movement. The principles that this “saintly leader having a global impact” followed and practiced in his life have several parallels with the foundations on which the open source was built. These ideals continue to stimulate and motivate millions of people around the world. Here are three resemblances between the modus operandi of Gandhi and open source that in my view reverberates with everlasting impact in the world we live in: A Community driven approach : Gandhi, during his days in South Africa was deeply inspired by Ruskin’s book “Unto This Last“, which he read and put into practice by establishing the “Phoenix Settlement”. Later, he was inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s work “The Kingdom of God Is Within You” and established “Tolstoy Farm” near Johannesburg. The common aspect of both these establishments were that they were community driven places, an approach also central to the open source developmental framework. Communities form the nucleus of all the software written in the open source world. People who were members of the aforementioned communities formulated by Gandhi participated with a desire fueled by an intention of embedding a novel approach to life while making the society a more participative and responsible place to dwell. Participation is key in the open source world as well. Both these systems transmogrified the basis of the human thought. A Do-It-Yourself (DIY) approach to life: The world of open source software is a world of experimentation. It is a world where the concept of DIY is implemented to its fullest and brought into its fruition. Engineers, hackers and software enthusiasts develop products that millions of people can play with, modify and recrate completely new innovations out of those products. Zealots can follow easily accessible in depth documentation to “break and make things”. This creates an enterprising environment benefitting technology, the business and the society as a whole. As I read his autobiography, I see the actions of Gandhi imbibing the same DIY scruples as the one’s described above. The “spiritual giant” was adept in experimentation and trying out new concepts himself and energizing people around him to do the same. Whether it be practicing as a Lawyer, working as a public servant, his explorations in dietary (especially his inclination towards earth and water treatment) or even learning geometry, Gandhi took the existing knowledge, mastered it, and inspired the world to implement the same in their lifestyles. It also implies the broad applicability of ideals and principles that forms the backbone of the open source realm. Power to the people : Through Free Software Foundation, the software pioneer Richard Stallman advocates to distribute the software in such a way that it is free for people to use and modify its source code. In 1989, he co-founded “League for Programming Freedom“, through which he campaigns against the software patents and restrictions on the use of “digital software products”. In a nutshell, he is a proponent of giving power to the people. On the same platform, Gandhi’s whole life was dedicated to empowering those who were deprived of exercising their rights. The core of both these ideologies was to challenge the existing norms and protocols and bring about a “constructive revolutionary change” in the lives of people and the world we live in. Evolving and nurturing the expression of individuality forms the spinal cord of both the philosophies. Whether it was the relentless pursue of truth which Gandhi immersed with the struggle for independence during colonial era or the software upheaval and revolution brought by the open source methodology to create a better technological ecosystem, I see deep affinity in both these approaches to tackle the pressing problems of the world from which we all can learn.