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Firstly, I define "colonialism" in this sense at the extraction of wealth by military or economic means, from one group, by another, to the detriment of the first.

Second, I draw a clear distinction between the capitalism of the industrial revolution (a period of economic growth which was driven almost entirely by small businesses which went on to become household names, and later became corporations) and corporate capitalism which we have now.

I believe our current system is inherently flawed because it used an incomplete set of metrics. We only measure growth in fiscal terms. We need to create metrics that asses human and environmental well being.
I don't know what those metrics look like yet but it's my firm belief that by being as open and transparent as possible, we are more likely to be able to find answers.

I make no apologies for thinking that the open source model is a superior one. While I wish to explore a model of business that supports co-operation over competition I do not suggest that competition is inherently bad. Only that it is less efficient. I intend to prove this by out-competing it.
If this approach implicitly suggests that businesses that are not open and transparent may have something to hide and are perhaps less deserving of peoples patronage, well so be it. I call that a tactical advantage ;)

I sincerely applaud their sincerity about their willingness to strive for total transparency in their business model. I wish them great success at it.

But I also wince a bit at the idea that in so doing, they are fighting a "current paradigm of corporate colonialism". With such statements come an unspoken implication that those do not want to make their business totally transparent are somehow doing something wrong or at least inferior to those who do, and that they would then be implicitly *supporting* "corporate colonialism", whatever that really means.

This way of thinking - that everything should be "open source" and accessible to everyone - has been fueled by the internet, which has been ushering in a new age where, in the words of William S. Burroughs, no one has the right to mind their own business.

I don't want to know somebody else's business accounting information and I don't want you to know mine. I don't want to know your trade secrets and I don't want you to know mine. The idea that there's something "corporate" or "colonialist" about private ownership of proprietary information is largely post-internet thinking.

As a Steampunk/Dieselpunk enthusiast, I am more interested in pre-internet thinking, and I embrace the Victorian spirit of unchecked and rampant capitalism, a la the Industrial Revolution and those over-the-top hucksterly advertisements from the period that I presume we all love.

(And I certainly support "Maker Culture" at the same time as I espouse this view - I mostly make my own clothes, and have done plenty of pro-bono free sewing work for friends.)