Archive for October, 2011

Radical Open Source – Licensing

Friday, October 14th, 2011

I’ve already posted something about this here.

Now, I’ll go straight to the point!

Proliferation of Open Source licenses is a complete mess, despite initial good intentions (anyway, not all open source licenses are used to foster openness of code and collaboration).

Why so many licenses? Many reasons! (the list of open source licenses here just takes into consideration the OSI approved ones!). Now, are authoritative organizations (including OSI) ready (or willing) to foster a convergence of the existing licenses to one single (or to very few) simplified licenses?

A backlog exists, I know. Let’s start from now adopting a new approach and let’s put pressure to communities and existing project teams to update their current licences.

This will probably give rise to some issue with communities (sometimes their licensing model is core to the community)! I’ll post something more about it soon: Radical Open Source – Communities.

Any more issue?

Legal compliance with national jurisdiction? Fine, let’s regulate just what we want/can regulate (just separate what prevails in the national jurisdiction and what prevails in the software license, regulating just the latter).

Anything else?

Too simple? Do you prefer to continue to accept the current situation? I prefer to move to a broader openness!

Radical Openness

Friday, October 14th, 2011

Next Ted Global 2012 is going to address Radical Openness. They say: “The world is becoming increasingly interconnected and open. Radically open — manifesting itself in open borders, open culture, open-source, open data, open science, open world, open minds. With the loss of privacy that it implies, openness carries its own dangers. But it breeds transparency, authenticity, creativity and collaboration.”

I think that now it’s the right time to collect some ideas, effective suggestions and to move a step forward!

At fOSSa Conference 2011 in Lyon  the Openness Track, dedicated to Open Collaboration, Open Cloud and Open Data, will close with the following unconference panel: Radical Openness: broadening the open world.

We aim at testing the fOSSa friends’ feeling, stimulated by fOSSa speakers, who will introduce their suggestions about which the next steps towards a broader open word are.

All the participants will take part in the definition of a common vision allowing to build a radically open world. A first concrete result will be the drafting of a manifesto envisaging a new model of economic and social growth.

By the way, come to the panel, rise your voice, share your ideas. Let’s build a Radical Openness Manifesto together! Register to fOSSa Conference now!

My aim now is to stimulate a debate in order to collect ideas and suggestions that I can submit to the unconference panel for you, if you’ll not come to the event. In this regards, I’ll post some thoughts soon in this blog.

What am I looking for? Anything you can submit about the Radical Openness theme. I’m an IT guy; therefore my focus is on technology and digital habits, but you can enlarge this context as much as you like.

I think that, if we adopt an open-minded approach, openness allows us to look at the upcoming challenges and opportunities occurring in many fields (such as open contents, open services, open data, open science…), giving prominence to the role of the individual, who, thanks to his/her participation in communities and networks, produces new value and brings innovation, within a sustainable and long-lasting development process.

Let’s go with some suggestions, now.

Radical Open Source: I’ve already posted something about this topic getting some feedback in the blog or through Linkedin groups. The author of an interesting feedback asked me to discuss about community dynamics, economics and value transfer (I can group the latter two, I guess). I’ll also add the licensing issue  (i.e.: open use, distribution, re-distribution): it’s a niche theme, but I’m collecting many criticism about it.

So, let’s go with the upcoming new threads on Radical Open Source-Licensing, Radical Open Source–Communities, Radical Open Source–Economics.

But, what about Radical Open Contents, Radical Open Data, Radical Open Government, Radical Open Science, Radical Open Education, Radical Open Access?

Would you like to add some more?

Send me all your feedback, comments, suggestions and criticism.

On the other hand, I promise I’ll publish them, open new threads on your topics and clearly outline my envision (about Radical Open Source, at least).

And, last but non least, propose them to the fOSSa unconference panel, if you’ll not come (however, I hope you’ll submit them by yourself in Lyon. See you soon! )