To fix this bug, the First Continental Congress voted on twelve Constitutional Amendments in September of 1789. Two of them failed to gain enough support and the remaining ten, collectively known as The Bill of Rights, were included in ‘version 2.0’ of the US Constitution, released in 1791.
This refactoring process was open source-minded on multiple levels.
First, the voice of the people (the community) was heard when expressing concern about defects (bugs) in the Constitution. In this case, the bugs related to the lack of sufficient protection for individual civil rights. There was no presumption of perfection or completeness in the US Constitution, and there was a will to improve it and make it better through an open political process.
Second, changes were proposed, discussed, and finally implemented. The discussion of these amendments is equivalent to code reviews that a typical open source software project will go through when adopting substantial changes. Note: the amendements were adopted without having to “fork” the project (the country), though later the country was deeply divided, resulting in the American Civil War in 1861…
As code and law, and community and society, come closer together, taking a fresh look at the history that led us here, sheds a bright light on how we can continue to work together, and how open source principles can continue to change the world for the better.”
The US Constitution version 2.0
Luis Ibanez : “After ‘version 1.0’ of the US Constitution was released to the public on Sept 17, 1787 there was remaining discontent among several states regarding the powers assigned to the new Federal government and a lack of protections for fundamental individual freedoms and civil rights.