Vitalik Buterin Advocates for Open Source over ‘Public Goods’

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin suggested moving away from the concept of “public goods” in favor of “open” products.

According to the programmer, public goods are particularly important in digital decentralized systems, yet the concept itself is fraught with problematic aspects and is prone to distortions.

Buterin noted that in public discourse, this term is often equated with government activity. As a result, products are classified as public goods not based on their functions and properties, but on self-proclaimed intentions and authorship.

The Ethereum founder cited examples of companies claiming to create public goods while being commercial projects with their own tokens.

“There is nothing wrong with being a commercial project, and often there is nothing wrong with launching your own token. However, this demonstrates something about the notion of ‘public good,’ which is so easily distorted that today it often simply means ‘project’,” Buterin stated.

As an alternative, the programmer proposed focusing on the concept of “open source products.”

He noted that this category includes significant examples of “obvious public goods” — academic research in blockchain technology 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 by the Free Software Foundation and the Open Source Initiative have been accepted for decades.

The programmer emphasized the importance of focusing on creating things of maximum value to humanity — the label of “openness” itself should not be perceived as a virtue.

In February, the Ethereum Foundation donated $1.25 million to support the legal defense of Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev.