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."