{"id":1822,"date":"2006-01-12T02:35:00","date_gmt":"2006-01-12T02:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sustainablog.greenoptions.com\/2006\/01\/12\/building-an-open-source-community-for-appropriate-technology\/"},"modified":"2006-01-12T02:35:00","modified_gmt":"2006-01-12T02:35:00","slug":"building-an-open-source-community-for-appropriate-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/building-an-open-source-community-for-appropriate-technology\/","title":{"rendered":"Building an Open-Source Community for Appropriate Technology"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a> Categories: open source<\/a>, appropriate technology<\/a>, community<\/a>, innovation<\/a>, development<\/a>, software<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Thanks to Agroblogger for inviting me to join his ruminations on the benefits of an open-source model for appropriate and intermediate technologies. AB’s already got a good start with considerations [ … ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Thanks to Agroblogger for inviting me to join his ruminations on the benefits of an open-source model for appropriate and intermediate technologies<\/a>. AB’s already got a good start with considerations on why the open-source software movement has worked so well and even come of age, and believes the creation and refinement processes, as well as the licensing practices, of open-source software could serve as a model for AT<\/a>. Since I’m pretty new to the concept, my first inclination is to say “Right on,” and keep it at that…. but you know me better than that! I can think of several developments I’ve blogged about in recent months (the Play-Pump<\/a> comes immediately to mind, as well as the Appleseed Biodiesel Reactor<\/a> (which is open-source) that Ryan’s used to make biodiesel<\/a>) that are marvelous examples of appropriate technology, and agree that an open-source model would hasten both the distribution and improvement of such inventions (I imagine it has in the Appleseed’s case). Mostly, though, I’d like to get a discussion going, one that I hope will occur between blogs as well as between sustainablog readers. Ryan, jump in. And, Jamais, if you’re out there, I know you know this stuff… I’d also imagine that some of you would want to push for a more traditional proprietary model, so jump in. I really like the open-source concept; at the same time, I’ll admit I’ve had trouble figuring out how to use open source software of various kinds (downloaded and fiddled with Audacity<\/a>, for instance, more times than I care to count). Is this a concept that generally will appeal to the more technically inclined, but leave the rest of us out of the loop? But, of course, their are information-based “open source” models, too, like the wiki… Just thinking out loud… fire away.<\/p>\n