[okfn-discuss] Help shape the future of the Open Knowledge Foundation

Fri Nov 29 07:52:18 UTC 2013

On Thu, Nov 28, 2013 at 3:07 PM, Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:

> If a closed technology makes an organisation more efficient, there's a
> pragmatic argument. But the organisation may therefore be missing a chance
> to promote openness.

I totally agree about the need to be pragmatic. However, it is reasonable
to assume that an organization that promotes openness is sabotaging their
own mission and is less trustworthy when they don't do due diligence to
consider all open options before compromising. This is less blatant if the
organization in question isn't specifically about these issues.

Rather than insist on being dogmatic, I think compromising is still fine. I
just think there's no excuse for anything with the OKF to have failed to do
the simple research to figure out if open options are viable for any given
case.

For surveys specifically, I don't know if this is easy to host, but:
https://surveys.libresoft.es/

And while I consider the FSF's registry (
http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Main_Page) and Wikipedia as the best, most
open options for finding software, I think the pragmatic compromise is to
use alternativeto.net — they mark clearly each Open Source option and can
filter by Open Source and are probably the easiest way to discover tools.

Cheers,
Aaron
Snowdrift.coop

--
Aaron Wolf
wolftune.com
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