Open Commons Dividend Specification

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Open Commons Dividend

Returning Public Surplus to the People

OpenCommonsDividend is an open-source civic finance platform designed to identify verified financial surplus and distribute it fairly among residents, stakeholders, or organizational members.

Built as a modular system on top of Fundamenta, OpenCommonsDividend provides transparent budgeting, AI-assisted financial auditing, citizen oversight, and dividend distribution infrastructure while ensuring that all final financial decisions remain under human control.

Every automated recommendation, surplus calculation, and distribution decision must include human review and approval. The approving individual or authority must be recorded in the system to provide full traceability, accountability, and audit history.

Project Vision

Financial systems often operate without sufficient transparency, making it difficult for citizens, employees, or stakeholders to understand how funds are collected, managed, and distributed.

OpenCommonsDividend creates an open infrastructure layer where surplus funds can be identified, verified, and returned to the communities or organizations that generated them.

The platform is designed around five principles:

Transparency
Accountability
Fair distribution
Human oversight
Open infrastructure

OpenCommonsDividend can support governments, municipalities, cooperatives, nonprofits, businesses, and other organizations seeking a transparent surplus-sharing model.

Modular Architecture

OpenCommonsDividend is designed as a modular platform.

The system consists of:

Core Modules
Optional Plug-in Modules
Integration Modules
Governance Modules

Each module operates independently while communicating through standardized APIs and shared data structures.

Organizations can deploy only the modules they require while expanding functionality over time.

Core Modules

Budget Integration Module

Provides the foundation for importing and organizing financial data.

Features:

Government budget ingestion
Business financial data ingestion
Revenue tracking
Expense tracking
Department classification
Vendor data imports
Contract data imports
Fiscal year management
Multi-organization support

Financial Data Normalization Module

Transforms financial information into a consistent format.

Features:

Data cleaning
Financial category mapping
Duplicate detection
Source validation
Historical record management
Cross-system data reconciliation

Surplus Engine

Calculates verified available surplus.

Features:

Revenue analysis
Expense analysis
Reserve calculations
Debt obligation calculations
Capital project accounting
Surplus forecasting
Surplus verification reports

The Surplus Engine determines the available dividend pool but cannot authorize distribution without human approval.

AI Surplus Auditor

Provides AI-assisted financial analysis.

Features:

Spending anomaly detection
Unusual transaction detection
Vendor risk analysis
Contract pattern analysis
Budget variance analysis
Cost benchmarking
Fraud indicator detection
Financial trend analysis

AI-generated findings are recommendations only.

All findings require human review before action.

Human Approval & Accountability Module

Ensures responsible governance.

Features:

Human approval workflows
Approval identity recording
Timestamped decisions
Approval history
Audit trails
Decision justification records
Accountability reporting

No automated system may finalize financial decisions without recorded human approval.

Citizen Audit Mode

Provides public transparency tools.

Features:

Public budget exploration
Spending analysis
Vendor review
Contract review
Audit report generation
Public comments
Community findings
Independent financial analysis

Citizens can examine the same financial information used by the system.

Dividend Engine

Calculates and manages surplus distribution.

Features:

Dividend pool calculation
Equal distribution calculations
Eligibility management
Distribution scheduling
Payment tracking
Dividend history
Distribution reports

All distributions require recorded human approval.

Transparency Ledger Module

Maintains permanent financial records.

Features:

Immutable audit records
Transaction history
Approval records
AI recommendation records
Human decision records
Change tracking
Verification history

Open Civic Data API

Provides developer access.

Features:

Budget API
Surplus API
Dividend API
Audit API
Vendor API
Contract API
Public dashboard integrations
Third-party applications

Optional Plug-in Modules

Optional modules extend OpenCommonsDividend functionality.

Civic Participation Modules

Participatory Budget Module

Allows communities to participate in financial planning.

Features:

Budget proposals
Community voting
Scenario comparison
Public feedback
Priority ranking

Dividend Choice Module

Allows communities or organizations to determine surplus usage.

Features:

Full dividend distribution
Partial dividend allocation
Infrastructure reinvestment
Community project funding
Member voting

Final decisions remain subject to human approval.

Civic Proposal Module

Allows users to submit financial improvement proposals.

Features:

Proposal creation
Cost estimation
Public discussion
Voting support
Implementation tracking

Government Transparency Modules

Vendor Transparency Network

Tracks organizations receiving funds.

Features:

Vendor profiles
Contract history
Payment history
Vendor concentration analysis
Risk indicators

Contract Intelligence Module

Provides procurement oversight.

Features:

Contract tracking
Change order monitoring
Cost escalation detection
Renewal tracking
Performance history

Public Project Tracker

Tracks funded projects.

Features:

Project budgets
Completion tracking
Timeline monitoring
Cost variance analysis
Risk reporting

Business Modules

Employee Dividend Module

Applies surplus distribution concepts to businesses.

Features:

Company surplus calculation
Employee eligibility
Equal profit-sharing models
Transparent reporting

Cooperative Module

Supports member-owned organizations.

Features:

Member dividends
Cooperative voting
Shared ownership reporting
Community investment models

AI Enhancement Modules

Financial Forecasting AI

Features:

Revenue prediction
Expense forecasting
Surplus forecasting
Risk modeling

Policy Simulation AI

Features:

Budget scenario modeling
Long-term impact analysis
Alternative planning scenarios

Audit Assistant AI

Features:

Report generation
Document analysis
Compliance checking
Audit preparation

Security Modules

Identity Verification Module

Features:

Eligibility verification
Role management
Access control
Secure authentication

Privacy Protection Module

Features:

Data minimization
Privacy controls
Secure records
Anonymous reporting support

Whistleblower Module

Features:

Secure reporting
Anonymous submissions
Evidence management
Investigation tracking

Integration Modules

Financial System Connectors

Supports integration with:

Accounting systems
Government financial systems
ERP platforms
Banking systems
Payment providers

External Data Connectors

Supports:

Economic data
Census data
Demographic data
Public datasets

Development Principles

OpenCommonsDividend follows these principles:

Human-in-the-Loop First

AI assists with analysis but does not replace human judgment.

Every final financial decision requires:

Human approval
Recorded identity
Timestamp
Decision history

Modular by Design

Features should be developed as independent modules that can be enabled, disabled, or replaced.

Transparency by Default

Financial calculations, approvals, and distributions should be auditable.

Open Infrastructure

The platform should remain accessible, extensible, and community-driven.

Specification Branding License (SBL)

Standard

Fully AGPL-3.0+ compliant system
Copyleft enforced for network deployments
Required attribution:
- Roxanne Ardary
- https://www.roxanneardary.com/

Optional

Specification Branding License (SBL)
- Attribution-free commercial deployment
- Pricing based on scale, usage, and deployment scope
- https://roxanneardary.com/open-commons-dividend/

License & Notice Requirements

OpenCommonsDividend is released under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later (AGPL-3.0+).
By contributing to this project, you agree that your contributions will also be released under this license.

Please note the following:

All contributions must comply with the AGPL-3.0+ terms.
Under Section 7 of the license, all redistributions, forks, and derivative works must preserve attribution to:
Roxanne Ardary and roxanneardary.com.
OpenCommonsDividend specificiations are free to use with attribution. A Specification Branding License can be negotiated upon request.
The project’s notice.md file tracks attribution requirements and contributor acknowledgments.
Any update that adds new contributors or modifies attribution should also update notice.md.
When submitting a pull request, ensure that any new files maintain the attribution headers where applicable.
Network-deployed versions of this software must also remain fully AGPL-3.0+ compliant, including exposure of source code modifications when applicable under the license.

For full legal details, please refer to the AGPL-3.0+ license and the project’s notice.md file.

Notice – OpenCommonsDividend

Attribution Requirement: Under Section 7 of the AGPL 3.0+ license, all redistributions, forks, and derivative works, including network-deployed versions of this project, must provide attribution to Roxanne Ardary and roxanneardary.com.

Contributors

This file tracks contributors and their specific contributions to the project.

Roxanne Ardary, roxanneardary.com – March 15, 2026
Created the repository for OpenCommonsDividend. Designed the platform to provide transparent, equitable dividend distribution with human-in-the-loop oversight and AI-assisted auditing.
[Add other contributors here] – [Date]
[Describe contribution in one sentence]

License – OpenCommonsDividend

This repository is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later (AGPL-3.0+).

Key Points:

You are free to use, modify, and distribute the code.
All redistributions, forks, and derivative works or network-deployed versions must also be licensed under AGPL-3.0+ and provide attribution to Roxanne Ardary and roxanneardary.com as required under Section 7 of the license.
The software is provided “as is,” without warranty of any kind.

For the full license text, see GNU AGPL-3.0 License.