[okfn-discuss] Open Knowledge Foundation Strategy slides

Sun Jul 21 09:39:07 UTC 2013

Nick, great answer. thx!

On Sat, Jul 20, 2013 at 10:47:35PM +0100, Nick Stenning wrote:
> I certainly wouldn't say that OKF is "moving away from open source
> software." All software developed by OKF has been and remains open
> source, typically under permissive licenses. That's unlikely to change.

i think so, and also i think this is because the devs do have a longer
exposure to libre/open than the rest of the bunch.

i experience the same in hackerspaces, where the founder community is indeed
attached to the hacker values, but the newcomers are joining because it's hip
to be member in such a space, not because they want to nurture the values of
said communities. in my experience the second generation in such communities
has much less understanding of the values and the tools in them. how to solve
this, i don't know. but apparently new comers do not read mailing lists
archives nor do they google or read wikis to inform themselves.

> Whether OKF and its staff use non-free software in the course of their
> work is a different discussion, and -- as there has always been -- there
> is a complex and unfortunate tradeoff between productivity and moral or
> philosophical purity.

indeed. however the output should be in line with the values of said
organization, even if it compromises on them internally.

i believe this is also what luttwak considers over-extension, when your supply
lines become too thin... maybe instead of rushing ahead - without any
supporting infrastructure - the efforts should be redirected to first build
the infrastructure, so that the blitzkrieg will not fail due to lacking morale
and the winter...

> To pick the canonical example (pun not
> intended...): desktop Linux is more useable than it has ever been
> before, but I still wouldn't be comfortable recommending it to people
> who aren't comfortable finding their way out of a deep hole with bash,
> awk, and sed every once in a while. And that just isn't true of everyone
> who works for or with OKF, and perhaps won't ever be.

i need to disagree with you here. i do security (comsec/opsec) trainings for
NGOs in hostile environments. most people use windows, some macs. all are in
jeopardy due to their limited tools. when i give them tails (a quite safe
linux usb distro), they lighten up, they enjoy it and can immediately use it,
they are happy to have a wordprocessor, a spreadsheet program, etc. i think
they are mostly afraid due to the FUD campaigns of the proprietary vendors,
but when given a chance they are happy. and i'm talking here totally
non-technical NGOs.

same is true for my family and some friends who i support in using libre sw
for their work. i can also report, that i know of some totally non-tech NGOs
who have made the conversion and run totally free sw.

> - Do we mandate that non-free software may not be used in the
> commissioning of OKF activities? Because if we did, we wouldn't get an
> awful lot done.

can you list the top 10 things you cannot do in okfn without proprietary sw?

> - Should we publish our software on Gitorious, or our own home-brew
> Gitlab installation? Because if we did, nowhere near as many people
> would be able to find it, or contribute back to it?

i think you should indeed create all parts of an independent infrastructure.
the more organizations provide such services the less dependent are we. what
happens to OKFN, when github is bought and eradicated by google?
so my answer is: yes, run your own gitlab and make it free for anyone to use.

> - Should we use only open-source groupware? Because if we did, our staff
> would find it much more difficult to share documents, arrange meetings,
> and manage their email.

what are you using now, and what is hard to replace?

> I'm not saying that there aren't good open-source projects in any of
> these areas. Perhaps there are, and I'm just not aware of them.

listing and analyzing these would be a good 1st step to have some data to act
on.

> But if we're going to point fingers at GitHub, a company which (for
> entirely pragmatic profit-boosting reasons) has done more for
> open-source software than any other single organisation worldwide in the
> last five years, and say we shouldn't use their product (despite it
> being head and shoulders above any open-source competitor) because it
> isn't open-source... well, I think we're consigning ourselves to
> 
> - lowered profile of our software projects
> - lowered contribution rate to our software projects
> - increased sysadmin burden
> 
> at the very least.

so you're externalising your costs, and by the way increase your dependence on
3rd parties, you have absolutely no control over.

> Similarly -- I can't stand Google Docs. Really, I can't. But what's the
> viable open-source alternative? OpenOffice Impress? Really? And how
> about hosting and sharing those presentations with others?

i know people expect visual editors, but the results of those mostly suck if
not done by professionals, i'd say stick with some latex-beamer, or if you
want to avoid latex, then use a markup that can convert into slides. these can
also be conveniently converted not only into pdf, but also for publishing
online in HTML and other formats. just because we reached a local-maximum with
wysiwyg editors, doesn't mean we can do better, it just needs some education.

> So, finally, to be clear: I don't disagree that if there are good
> open-source alternatives, we should use them. But in many cases, the
> open-source options are just flat-out worse than the non-free
> competition, and we shouldn't cripple our ability to get work done by
> refusing to use the latter.

it's a slippery slope i think.

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