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I define a thing as open source if it comes with the "raw materials" used to make the thing (the "source") and the instructions or things used to build the final product.

• Re: Non-Software Open Source by Gabe Wachob on Friday October 06, @01:41PM

  I guess you are right. I was focusing on areas where the constituent parts were "intellectual property" or purely electronic in form, where costs of goods is practically nothing.

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• Re: Similar cultures by Peter Pongracz on Friday October 06, @07:35PM

  Yeah, and the similarity doesn't end there either. There are serious threats to the openness of the scientific community because of Corporate NDAs that divide the community. Increasingly, university professors, especially in the booming BioTech field, have to submit all publications to the sponsor company for approval (and "revision"). Publication delays of up to 6 months, and pretty strict censorship of negative results are becoming increasingly common. An article in Atlantic Monthly (Mar00) cited a study from Annals of Internal Medicine in which 98 percent of industry sponsored research reflected favorably on the drugs examined, versus 79 percent for the non-sponsored research. At Berkeley, some professors can't discuss their research with colleagues who aren't under NDA. Doesn't this sound like some of the problems OSS has with hardware vendors, and the bad legislation like DCMA which places serious limits on reverse-engineering? I don't think you can address these issues adequately via the political system in our super-capitalist society. You have to fight fire with fire, and be very selective about your targets. If we could vote with our checkbooks, collectively and directly like the mega-corporations do, then maybe we could slow down their power-grab on our common property (or preempt them even!)

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Another project I'm involved with, the Garnered Open Asperger Toolkit, aims at using the Open Source approach to identify the actual needs of Asperger people and find Open Source means to solve them.

My usual tactics involve yelling at the defendant "MY I REMIND YOU YOU'RE UNDER OATH"... that makes them look bloody guilty and I then win. It's nice.

Scoffing at everything they say works too, but not nearly as effectivly as screaming "MAY I REMIND YOU YOU'RE UNDER OATH"

• Re: Non-Software Open Source by Gabe Wachob on Friday October 06, @01:42PM

  Oh, how could I forget that. I gave them one of the first pieces of content they had - a Pathfinder (from my days in law school) on vendor- and medium- neutral citation (of primary legal sources).

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• Re: Non-Software Open Source by DoubleTake on Friday October 06, @10:14PM

  This is not an either-or situation - I program and I correct what I think are misconceptions concerning open source. Every community proselytises. We need to do it just to give some balance versus wholesale corporate propaganda. eg. Microsoft astroturfs all the time. I wish "truth in advertising" laws actually meant something and such corporate funded hacks had to give their affiliations.

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• Re: Non-Software Open Source by Matthew Francey on Saturday October 07, @11:22AM

  >I correct what I think are misconceptions >concerning open source. Whatever for? >Every community proselytises. Actually, most communities don't. It is only the weird and scary types like cultists which do this sort of thing. >[balance vs. corporate propoganda] To my knowledge, "Open Source" is an information amplification technique, not a sales strategy. Perhaps if you are running a company that is trying to extract money from this phenomena your views might be, shall we say, somewhat different. My guess is that the bulk of people who are into "open source" are just normal people who like to program and couldn't care less what anyone else says about them: "Why do you care what other people think"?, spoketh Master Feynman. None of these people wake up in the morning and check the news to see what Microsoft's mouthpieces have said today about Open Source: "Oh god, they just maligned us all again," thinks Linus, "I guess thats it for Linux! About time anyways, because without better truth-in-advertising laws we'll never get 2.4 done before Christmas." These people know that they can write as many programs as they want, doing the "Open Source" thing all the way, regardless of what Microsoft says.

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• Re: Non-Software Open Source by Monty Harder on Monday October 09, @08:23PM

  I don't see car mechanics coming to me, with wide grins on their faces, speaking in glowing terms of how they organize their work, and why I should adopt their techniques. I sometimes wish they would apply more of an Open Source approach. Auto manufacturers seem to go out of their way to obfuscate the workings so that shade-tree mechanics go the way of the Dodo. Only those Annointed into the Priesthood are allowed to meddle in the innards of these Holy Shrines. I consider myself sort of a "shade-tree programmer". Imagine owning an automobile with the hood locked shut, and only Authorized Service Technicians permitted to observe its inner workings. Even changing a tire would require the services of a General Motors Certified Engineer (under an NDA, of course). Lawyers from the Automobile Manufacturing Association of America [AMAA] would come after me for possession of a Haynes manual. But I digress. Computers are about the processing of information. It is precisely in enterprises geared toward the dissemination of information that "open source" makes the most sense.

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Well, I'm the the middle of building OpenCapitalism.org. I think there are lot of great ideas floating around out there for creating new companies (based on Open Source or not), but not enough people have the knowledge/time/tenacity/etc. to actually write a business plan, find seed, build the alpha, get some venture money, hire developers/employees, build the beta, get more money, work with investment bankers, launch an IPO, etc.

So, for those with the ideas but not the means, I though it would be sensible to build an open forum. If someone with the means thinks it's a good idea, I'm happy to let those two parties meet via OpenCapitalism.org (that's the whole point).

Should be online in a week or two.