[okfn-discuss] Open Knowledge Foundation Strategy slides

[Peter Murray-Rust]

I am sympathetic to this concern. I don't think we can be universal, but I
think it could be useful to detail and publish the different components.
Questions that would be relevant:

* is there an existing F/OSS solution?
* if yes, is it readily usable by experts? If yes, how much training,
tutorial is required for community use?
* if no, it is high priority that one should be developed? if yes, is the
OKF the right place (resources, community), to do this? If we can't can we
still give the world a lead (e.g. by initial design and advocacy)

We would need to answer these questions for a wide range of activities -
some examples:
 * slides
 * editing/creating documents
 * conferencing
 * calendars
 * data extraction and analysis
 * repositories and knowledge bases
 * graphics

.. and probably > 20 more

A summary of these, with the issues would be of enormous value to the
world. We could get a good start in a hackday. Out of this could then come
a list of the areas where we could make most impact (coding, advocacy,
customisation, etc.). We might also develop an "Open Audit" for OKF ( do
other organisations do this?).

To give my own example, I am keen to develop Open content mining of the
(STEM) literature. There are some closed commercial tools which I would
never use ((lack of) functionality, extensibility, redistributability,
money, opaqueness of algorithm, etc.) and anyway they don't do what we want
to. So we have to develop our own. The good news is that:
 * there are a number of F/OSS libraries (PDFReaders, image analysis,
natural language processing).
 * we are developing a critical mass of community.
 * the result will have a big impact

The major reason for doing this is to liberate the content that exists in
the scientific literature. Many publishers will claim the content is
"theirs". I and others in OKF challenge this. So the approach is manyfold:
 * political (and Ross Mounce and I have spent much time in purely
political issues).
 * advocacy and growing the community.
 * writing code
 * creating Open corpora
 * customising resources and software.

We have very limited resources. So if I have to choose between developing
software for content mining  and learning how to install and run an Open
Word alternative I spend my time on the former. But I support those trying
to promote Open document editors. And I will switch *when the Open
community makes it simple and cost-effective to do so*. Similarly with
Skype, Google-stuff, etc.

Changing to F/OSS will take time and resources. I am sure that there are
some easy transitions to F/OSS that we can make if they are identified *and
have community support*.  I'd certainly come to a hackathon.






On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 4:59 AM, Mr. Puneet Kishor <punk.kish at gmail.com>wrote:

> Yes, thank you Diane. It is very clear, and I somewhat agree with you. I
> agree that open communities should use open source *to the extent
> practical*, and I don't think open source will disappear if open
> communities do use non-open services.
>
> But, instead of getting into an argument about it, an argument that
> generally has no end, I do want to say that I agree with the spirit of your
> statement. To the extent practical, we *should* use and support open
> source, because then others can build upon our work and we upon the the
> works of others.
>
> Many thanks,
>
>
> On Jul 21, 2013, at 5:59 PM, Diane Mercier <diane.mercier at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Sorry for my poor english.
> > Gitorious.org is completely open source.
> > Open community should adopt open source like gitorious.org instead
> privative SaaS (e.g. Github or Google).
> > If Open community use privative SaaS (e.g. Github or Google, etc.) than
> open source (e.g. gitorious.org, etc.) will disappear.
> >
> > Is this clear?
> >
> > Why OKFN choose Google Drive, Github, etc. instead contribute to open
> source development and adoption.
> >
> > DM
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Le 2013-07-21 13:11, Mr. Puneet Kishor a écrit :
> >> On Jul 21, 2013, at 9:04 AM, Diane Mercier <diane.mercier at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Or join communities of developers until these Open tools disappear
> purchased or removal by the SaaS of this world, for example gitorious.org
> >> I want to understand the above sentence better. Are  you saying that
> gitorious.org *has* either disappeared, purchased or removed, or are you
> saying that gitourious.org is an "SaaS of this world" that will purchase
> or remove "Open tools"?
> >>
> >> Afaict, gitorious is completely open source (offered under a GNU Affero
> GPL).
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Puneet Kishor
> >
>
>
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-- 
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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