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By: Guest columnist & historian Gregory Munoz

The following is a fictitious story/analogy about Open Source in the present and future. Tongue is firmly planted in-cheek, but the discussion is a valid one, as you'll see...

a) The New Millennium Utopians wishing to benefit from his kindness must first sign the Agrarian Nepo Public License, which allows for use and distribution of crops at the owner's discretion.
b) The field owner himself decided what crops would be planted during any given season.
c) Any participant in this program would have access to consume all crops from other plot owners on his land free of charge.

“From what we have been able to tell by studying the carbon laser dating, this societal origination took place roughly 800 years ago in the 1990s,” said Shankman. “While this set of social guidelines seems foreign to us today, it was even more unusual to suggest a communal system in what was, at the time, an apparently capitalistic society.”

2) Growth. Further records indicate that the land owner, shortly after the enactment of the license, struck a deal with an external distributor for taking care of the logistics and operation costs (including seeds, fertilizers, equipment, etc.) of the micro-fields in exchange for allowing the distributer to sell or barter excess production in the open market. Soon, all excess food was delivered to the distributor in exchange for how easy he made the field work.

3) External Expansion. After a few successful years, a new social movement emerged that was centered on empowering people to control their own agrarian fate. Equipped with the education they learned from working on the communal micro-fields and protected by Agrarian Nepo Public License, the Town folk branched out and begun working on the crop of their choice, in essence becoming actual farmers.

“More and more distributors with deep pockets moved freely in and out of the valley to help manage the surplus and to bring much needed supplies and outside expertise,” said Shankman.

This broadening of the ecosystem was a pivotal moment, according to Dr. Shankman. “Since the licenses required that the field owner had the final say in the crops that were planted, the surrounding communities began to pay local field workers to 'lobby' the landowner based off of their own market interests. It appears the distributors became involved in the lobbying efforts too. This is perhaps not surprising, considering the society's capitalistic origins.”

During this transition, according to Shankman, is where the records begin to become more vague. But one aspect seems clear: the society seemed mostly healthy until one major event brought everything to a standstill: It suddenly stopped raining.

Supporting this environmental-disaster theory, MostDigs recently discovered an almanac that precedes the time of the supposed drought that predicts a hard period of no rainfall. It stated the rain was most likely to end during first decade of the 21st century, which correlates with the timing of the end of the discovered records. What was once a lush, thriving paradise apparently became barren land nearly overnight – and there may have been warning that was not heeded.

Researchers postulate a number of explanations for the sudden climate and corresponding societal change.

“Water is the lifeblood of all societies. So, it would stand to reason that a lasting drought could cripple this agrarian community and ultimately contribute to the end of its influence in the area. However, contradicting that theory, the landscape shows an abundance of water in lakes and rivers at a reasonable distance from the community,” said Shankman.

He continued, “Little to no effort was apparently made to build any irrigation systems, or aqueducts despite the almanac's prediction of a prolonged drought or this demonstrated availability of water nearby.”

Other researchers reason that the governing system under the ANPL had too little influence in the type of large scale effort needed to direct the building of such an irrigation system. After all, farmers could do whatever they wanted and whenever they wanted; ultimately guided by self-interest.

Dr. Shankman, points out that divergence of opinion as to what direction to take to solve the water crisis would have likely polarized all actions despite the community's will or best interests.

Shankman, however, believes the drought was the catalyst and not the cause; the drought expedited what was already in the making.

“A likely sequence of events would indicate an initial disagreement over what crops to grow in each plot and an ensuing rebellion categorized by self-interested actions. For example, one citizen grew corn for three years. He grew tired of growing corn, or he had to trade half of his crop for a bag of apples. He then wanted to grow apples ... you see the proverbial snow ball beginning to form,' Shankman said. “Then, with the removal of the rainfall, I believe the society simply collapsed in a chaotic mess due to starvation and lack of common direction.”

This descending view is shared by Anthropolist and Cultural Behavior expert Dr. Amos Browning of Elay University: “Social history research shows that humans most often measure their personal value through complex social comparisons. Everyone likes to be recognized and to receive credit for what is produced, particularly if we take pride in our work,” Browning states. “Historically,we don't fair well under 'compulsory' sharing conditions, especially without receiving proper credit for our contribution. The key word is 'proper,' since everyone's personal and societal expectations are different.

As the scholarly debate continues, Dr. Shankman and his team are working busily to uncover more clues about the fate of the Utopian society. While the true series of events may never be known, we may be able to draw some contemporary lessons for our own culture, as noted by Dr. Browning: “The freedom to self-improve and pursue self-interest is an inherently attractive prospect across human cultures. The true challenge comes when a large community of self-motivating people has their desires conflict and compromise is required to move forward. When outside forces are also at work, in this case environmental, the very resiliency of cultural ideals is at stake.”