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

Fri Nov 29 08:15:40 UTC 2013

Le 29/11/13 08:52, Aaron Wolf a écrit :
>
> On Thu, Nov 28, 2013 at 3:07 PM, Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk
> <mailto: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. 
>
As shown brilliantly by Glyn Moody during an invited keynote at the
Berlin11 conference on OpenAccess in Berlin last week (see
http://berlin11.org), the revolution of open access is only half done,
and free software (as proposed and realized thanks to Richard Stallman,
Linus Torvalds) and the late Michael Hart founder of the gutenberg
project comes thanks to freedom given to the users

As Glyn does by using free softwares, as proposed in this thread, I
personnally think is is *very* important to align the words and the
actions, and to use *only* free softwares, unless no alternative exists
for the same purposes. This will also help and support our actions
towards openness

yes, this can require some work, for example only some research, as the
marketing machine supporting proprietary tools is very efficient. As far
as I know the free software for surveys that was mentioned by Stefano
Costa has existed before Google Docs tools ... but maybe less
advertised, and it comes at a cost : the one of self installation, but
is also gives some power to the user : he knows that Google has no
access to the data.

Quote of Stefano :

LimeSurvey http://www.limesurvey.org/en/ is open source and has also a
free hosting at https://www.limeservice.com/en/

I fully share the idea developped by Aaron here under
> 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.
and also
>
> 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 <http://alternativeto.net> ---
> they mark clearly each Open Source option and can filter by Open
> Source and are probably the easiest way to discover tools.
>
indeed these places to look for tools and ideas are great.

I would also suggest, in the case where one is looking for a free
software tool and does not find the one that could satisfy his needs, to
ask a question on this list with an explicite subject.

I suppose that many of us will with pleasure try to help and propose a
free solution (as in freedom)

best regards,

Nicolas Pettiaux

-- 
Nicolas Pettiaux - gsm +32 496 24 55 01 - nicolas at pettiaux.be
lepacte.be - 2013.rmll.info - euroscipy.org

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