Project Proposal of Open Source 2.0 Knowledge Base

What is open source? This initiative is the result of a desire to understand open source in order to educate people about open practices and openness movements (open science, open education, open [source] software, open data, etc.) with the aim of explaining this concept of « open source ».

When you dig deeper on its meaning, this notion becomes truly confused and unreadable. Consequently, it becomes impossible to explain simply.

After years of questioning this concept at the intersection of these movements of openness, extensive literature review, numerous exchanges and discussions, the hypothesis is that we truly don’t know what « open source » may be.

The aim is to build this knowledge base on open source to fuel debate and foster the understanding of this concept.

Roadmap

Literature Review ✅

An extensive bibliographical research was conducted to support the construction of the base on robust sources.

This encompasses historical aspects such as the sharing of source code since the origins of computers, the various emergences of the concept of open source, the different viewpoints and controversies regarding its meaning and around the Open Source Definition of the Open Source Initiative, around juridical issues with the arrival of the concept of copyleft and questions surrounding copyright reform, the use of the concept of open source outside of software.

It provides an overview of various dimensions that shape the meaning of open source.

Knowledge Base Construction ❌

Based on the bibliography, the next step is to develop basic explanations to make the concept of « open source » understandable.

Find a coherent and accessible structure to address these different dimensions while avoiding confusion as much as possible. Both a need for technical rigor to counter the beliefs surrounding it and to counter common criticisms from “experts” while still being accessible for the various audiences concerned with understanding the concept.

There is a need to find the balance between (citizen) research and education, between open science and open education.

Spread Elsewhere Open Source 2.0 Debate 🚀

These theoretical foundations are intended to enable derived explanations to become a form of reference to support explanations about open source, notably in the training around openness movements and practices.

One of the objectives is to bring these issues to other projects and initiatives, especially to other open educational resources.

This must reach people in the open source software community, but perhaps even more importantly stakeholders in other openness movements to enable them to appropriate the concept and collaborate more effectively around their open (source) resources.

The aim is to contribute to various educational content and research projects that may be related to the meaning of open source.

As they claim to define open source, the goal would be to have this research work on open source 2.0 taken over by the Open Source Initiative.

Project History

Traces of personal questioning (AbcSxyZ) can be found in 2022. After spending some time exploring the field, doubts about the meaning of this concept were growing.

Confusion surrounding political conflicts around open source software, and a concept that was then seen as software only by the time.

But the point of view has evolved, to discover its potential meaning outside of the software, launching the project « Open Source Undefined » with the associated website open-source-undefined.org.

After sufficient research and discussion, convinced of a meaning beyond software and a need for broader consideration of source files of digital resources to enable their modification with the democratization of other openness movements, the idea of a probable conceptual revolution has taken shape leading towards this idea of « Open Source 2.0 ».