proposed gist of an open company "manifesto"

manifesto

The Open Company Definition
===========================

(draft)

Introduction
------------

The Open company is a way of organizing collective human behavior, largely inspired by Eric S. Raymond's imperative
to take experiential knowledge from Open source software into 'other domains'.  Open companies will implement
the philosophy to various degrees, and have various downstream effect, but are all driven by the following precepts:

1. Default to transparency/default to disclose

The central precept that unifies open companies; this concept runs counter to attitudes pervasive in traditional
companies.  Often siloed, driven by the fear that the use of information is rivalrous; companies that instead
choose to run themselves as open companies can more easily leverage the often anti-rivalrous nature of knowledge sharing,
avoid reduplication and re-inventing the wheel that plagues siloed knowledge systems.

2. No discrimination to social goal

An open company might be a for-profit, or it might be a non-profit, or it might not explicitly be either.  Disclosure 
of information will by its very nature constrain certain activities typically associated with profit-seeking in the
case of for-profit companies, or donor activity associated with non-profits; and the open company initiative seeks
to provide examples and solidarity for companies navigating these challenges.

3. No discrimination to legal status

An open company might be an incorporated for-profit, an incorporated nonprofit with 501(c)(3) status, or have no legal
status at all.  In most cases, adopting open company standards and policies will result in a higher standard of 
disclosure than the minimum legally required.

4. Addenda

Open companies are encouraged to develop, adopt, explore, and advocate for policies and procedures which they feel improve 
transparency, disclosure, or ethical positions in the general spirit of the open company.  For example:

5. Open participation

6. Pay What You Want 

7. Price to Cost

8. Exceptions

There might be some situations where an open company might be constrained for ethical and/or legal reasons
against complete disclosure, for example medical or financial records of clients; or constrained against immediate
disclosure.  In these cases, open companies define the nature of the constraint, outline the ethical reasons
for these choices, and strive to contain the effects of private content and keep it, as much as possible, outside
of the administrative operation of the company.