Working on the Web Platform from a Cooperative

BlinkOn 9, Sunnyvale, California
April 18-19, 2018
Frédéric Wang (fwang@igalia.com)
Igalia Logo

About Igalia

Open Source Consultancy Cooperative
60-70 workers around the world

Areas

Accessibility
Browsers
Compilers and Virtual Machines
Graphics
Linux Kernel
Multimedia
Networking
Virtualization and Cloud

Flat organization

Equal responsibility
Democratic Assembly

No hierarchy (e.g. boss or managers) but still highly organized.

Evenly share responsibilities among workers. Does not mean no different roles (engineers, facilitators, finance, sales, etc), teams (areas) or commissions (diversity, NGO, tools...). But all business-related info shared. Consequence: Same salary, not common but solves many issues.
Decision-making body democratic structure same right to speak, vote and access information. Day-to-day business decisions (e.g. hiring, contract) and bimonthly meetings (e.g. budget or company agreements). New hires join assembly after an evaluation period (some points like team review opened to everybody).

Company Benefits

Better working environment
Fight discrimination and inequalities
Worker-driven strategy
Consensus for company

Democratic: For company operation, important to be respectful, listen to other's opinions. Equality: Avoids competition and increases solidarity between workers. Flat: Avoids harassment based on hierarchy (e.g. violation of CoC won't be tolerated). New hires: profiles aligned with our values ; check they accept rules.
No salary discrimination (e.g. based on gender). Marginalized groups or workers with special needs (health, family, environment...) can express their opinions and improve inclusion. In that context diversity fundamental to keep improving internal agreements.
Workers can propose invesments, sales opportunities, conferences, etc and actively participate to the business and sales strategy. Better self-satisfaction. Stronger than a freelance alone (more stable situation, less dependent on customers).
Workers can be assigned some less interesting tasks or disagree on some decisions, but agree to do what is best for the company. All is discussed, explained, argued and hence better accepted than when given by a superior. Example of crisis time with reduced salary and reorganization.

The Web Platform

Users and content
Standards
Implementations

In theory, Web good to apply non-hierarchical organization:

Incredible source of information, most websites free, everyone can participate, publish, share content etc
Web platform based on royalty-free and open standards, eveybody can freely implement or use them.
Most browser implementations are free software (JS engines, Web Engines minus Microsoft's one) ; anyone can contribute

In practice, not completely ideal: Web can be hostile (illegal/offensive content, privacy/security issue, advertising etc) ; Standardization and implementations mainly led by a few of the big companies with their own interests ; Third-party contribution requires approval by browser vendors ; Proprietary ecosystem (OS, libraries, development environment...).

Let's consider Igalia as an example of a small company that was able to contribute.

Igalia's contribution

Web Predictability
Helping Users
Implementation
Web Engines Hackfest

We are small but contribute at our level:

All open source web/JS engines + being "neutral" => well-placed for Web Predictability. Interop essential for us and our clients so strong supporters of WPT ; also allows to share tests. Participating to standard bodies (CSS WG, ARIA, TC39) to provide the point of view of users and focus on implementability on multiple platforms.
Different methods: customers (e.g. Bloomberg, AMP, Metrological) ; invest in technologies (pay staff or interns) interesting for the web community but less a priority for browser vendors. Experiment fundraising.
Grid (layout like newspapers ; Bloomberg customer), JS (extend language ; help web developers), a11y (inclusion goal), Math (education and science ; social goal), specs on Linux (a11y, WebVR, WebRTC ; free software values).
Since 2014 ; the whole browser community can meet and discuss technical/standardization topics, collaborate on implementations or present talks.

Conclusion

Delayer your company!
The Web is a commons!

¡Gracias por su atención!

Igalia, Web Engines Hackfest
Wingolog #cooperatives
Web Platform activities H1 2017, H2 2017