Talk:Development Infrastructure

Is "Open" an appropriate term?

From the Main Page:

We like to be clear about the meaning of open, or open source,' as used in this work for items of physical production. By open source, we mean documented to the point where a student may replicate a given item, without even consulting with the developers. To us, this embodies the most complete form of documentation possible, where sufficient detail is provided to enable independent replication. This is open source according to OSE Specifications.

The OSE specifications are wonderful, but the OSE definition of open source (indeed, the usage of "Open Source Engineering" in the project title itself) is significantly different from - and conflicting with - the common (and legal, iirc) usage of the term. I strongly suggest changing the terminology used, as it's a potential point of severe conflict with the majority of the open source community, who may object to the usage of their term in this manner that could confuse people.

The adjective "open," when applied to code, content, or anything else, typically refers to material licensed such that:

• the copyright holders retain their copyright (unlike public domain, which is giving your copyright up completely)
• anyone is libre to use it for gratis (some licenses allow gratis use for any purpose, others require attribution, and yet others restrict gratis use to noncommercal applications).
• anyone is libre to improve it (some licenses require inclusion of the source code or other base material that makes it easy to edit & remix; others do not allow derivative works, and still others have a "copyleft" clause that require all derivative works be open-licensed themselves)
• anyone is libre to share the work and/or their improvements of it with others for gratis (some licenses require attribution, others have a copyleft clause... etc. - see notes above.)

The adjective "open" does not usually mean:

• sufficient documentation (sufficient according to who?)
• well-designed, well-thought-out projects (by whose standards, anyway?)

The rationale is that people will flock around good projects, and not use bad ones. Let social dynamics determine the standard of how high-quality something has to get. A set of instructions that would enable one group of people (say, trained English-speaking engineers with a decade of experience) to replicate a device independently may be completely insufficient for another (say, Peruvian high-school students who don't read English fluently and have just learned to use a lathe).

The OSE specification on the Main Page is a superset of the conventional definition of "open" - I think it should be noted as such, under a different name. For instance, "Global Village projects must be released under an open source license (list acceptable licenses here) and in addition, meet the following quality criteria and be approved by (moderator) as sufficiently well-documented to allow, under most circumstances, the majority of (describe demographics of group) to build (device) independently."

Mel Chua

Great wiki, and very much aligned

Very brief response - not much time right this second, but I had to say how great it is to find someone whose goals are so enlightened (which is a not-very-modest way of saying I think your goals are aligned with ours at Appropedia).

To address a couple of issues raised in our email discussion:

1. Wiki merge or partnership? Precedents? From Appropedia's perspective (I think I can speak on behalf of all of us) - absolutely! We love synergy. Putting our work on the one site would be like putting burning coals together to create a much stronger flame. (Forgive the floral language.) There are lots of precedents for mergers - in fact, a majority of the content on our site started out on other wikis, especially WikiGreen. All 5 admins had started different wikis, or were about to start them, when we teamed up and merged.
2. Differences between OSE and Appropedia. There certainly are differences, but I see them as complementary. There are various options for dealing with different types of content. first options are categories, namespaces and templates. Subwikis with cross-login may be appropriate for clearly distinguished projects, but in this case I think OSE and Appropedia are very closely aligned and we could easily deal with the content in one wiki.
   • OSE is more technical than Appropedia. Definitely. This is not a matter of choice by Appropedia - simply that the technical stuff has not yet received enough attention. It's receiving more now thanks to Vinay and friends' excellent work on the Hexayurt Project, and I'm sure it will receive far more when we have people dedicated to Open Engineering - including Marcin, hopefully.

Note also our partnership with the Open Architecture Network (OAN) which is also very technically oriented. In that case they work off a different system (Drupal rather than a wiki) and the current plan is to provide a feed of Appropedia content to the relevant pages of OAN. In that case, there are more difficulties (due to the different platforms) and also a clearer distinction in terms of content (as they are focused on architecture).

Note also that Appropedia is very much a work in progress - how you see it in its current state is just a taste of how we envisage it.

Looking forward to your responses! --Chriswaterguy 02:11, 30 August 2007 (PDT)