A history of Open Source Appropriate Technology: Difference between revisions

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This page is part of an Akvo project on appropriate technology open collaborations.

• Appropriate technology open collaborations
• Appropriate technology restricted collaborations
• What makes an open collaboration
• A history of Open Source Appropriate Technology
• Green wikis and development wikis
• Open knowledge for international development
• Writings on Open Source Appropriate Technology
• Open patents and social structures for open design
• Akvo ATOC - Conclusions and recommendations
• Recent changes

This is a study on open collaborations for appropriate technology, initiated by Akvo.[1]

What is an "open collaboration"?

Key aspects of openness include:

• freedom to access the results of an effort (as in open access),
• freedom to participate (as with open editing)
• freedom to take the output of a project, modify it and even do something different from what was originally envisaged (libre, also including the freedom to fork)

As discussed below, an effective open collaboration with a community of active contributors requires:

• intention
• incentives

• personal satisfaction
• personal enjoyment
• community
• helping to create something that the participant also hopes to use
• ethical imperative - a desire to help.

• low barriers to entry:

• low membership barriers: joining and starting is easy and quick.
• low technical barriers: contributing doesn't scare people off.

• tools to enable collaboration

• easily accessible history of all changes to a unit of knowledge (this exists for wiki pages and source code, but there is some debate over what is needed for a design of a physical product)
• ways of tying communities together when working on the same thing:

• the dominant process, to date is the fairly blunt instrument of merging - several wikis have merged to form Appropedia; however several others have been hesitant to do so, wanting to maintain a separate identity. This may be a very good, synergistic option when the ideas are similar enough and when the only issue is branding and identity,^[1] bu problematic

The intention is not lacking; the time commitment is a major issue, and this is directly connected to ease of use, and how well the key concepts are understood (which in turn is a product of diffusion of the ideas, and how clearly the ideas are communicated).

Options:

• A central database may be recognized as the standard repository for all general appropriate technology information (though this may not be the same as the repository for designs) - the data is managed from a single server, and served to different websites. This appears to be getting closer, with the development of an API for Mediawiki (currently considered stable for reading, but not yet ready for editing.)
• Distributed editing, through the OLPC:Mik Mik model (distributed revision control system, built on top of Bazaar) of collaboration between branched articles, being developed by (or at least begun by) Benjamin Mako Hill. This model require some human intervention to approve changes made in different branches. This appears to be a brilliant solution to two situations:

• Where contributions are submitted asynchronously. (This is a much more critical version of "edit conflicts" in a wiki.) This was envisaged as an issue in OLPC's XO-1, where users are not always connected to the same network, let alone the global internet. MikMik is/was developed particularl with the XO in mind.
• Where there is a wish to keep the articles substantially different. So additions to a Wikipedia article could be easily compared to additions to an Appropedia article, and changes shared (or even transwikied in either direction when they fit within the scope of the project. This also improves on the current wiki model of attribution when copying or moving between projects, in that the software could presumably attribute the specific user from the other project who made the contributions, within the history page.

Appropriate technology wikis

• Appropedia, and the following projects that have merged with Appropedia:

• Wiki Green
• The Appropriate Technology Wiki Project by Village Earth.
• The WinWinWiki and [[
• As noted in Appropedia:A history of collaboration, a number of efforts have already joined forces. Not otherwise mentioned here are:

• Open Source Technologies - PESWiki. Though the focus on "free energy" might be misguided,^[2], the pages linked here describing open source technology are to some degree applicable to more mainstream open design projects, especially OSAT. (Also, some pages link to what may be valid renewable energy designs, e.g. for Biodiesel.) See PESWiki writings, below.

• Akvopedia
• Howtopedia
• Open Source Ecology
• Open Source Ecology: Mid-Missouri
• Fab Lab Wiki
• Hexayurt & How to Live Wiki
• Demotech
• Various Wikia sites:
  • Solar Cooking Archive Wiki - an exceptional example of an active wiki on a narrow topic. Now the organization is branching out (e.g. portable microbiological labs), this raises additional issues.
  • Renewable Energy Design Wiki (& in Italian: Energie Rinnovabili Alternative.)

Not quite "appropriate technology"

Wikis

• P2P Foundation - catalogs ideas in related fields.
• UNDP WaterWiki

Sustainable design, if not Appropriate technology:

• Greenlivingpedia
• Green Design Wiki
• Sustainapedia

Check:

• Ekopedia
• SDWiki
• TipThePlanet
• Wikia Green
• Wiki Green
• Many green wikis, that are not so much about design, but do have useful information about sustainable technologies, processes and practices.

Non-wiki

• MIT Collabatorium - highly structured; in concept phase.
• OAN - very visual and requires the use of tools to create/present the design: CAD...; starts from a single viewpoint - is there an equivalent of a stub?

talk of OSAT

• STAR-TIDES - uncertain commitment to platform, but making some use of Appropedia.
• ThinkCycle? Didn't take off.

Real world collaborations

Open design work in appropriate technology includes:

• Open Source Ecology
• STAR-TIDES
• Hexayurt Project

NGOs and OSAT

Many NGOs in principle believe in openness, including:

• Practical Action (the original appropriate technology organization, starting in 1965 as the Intermediate Technology Development Group.) Their technical briefs are used by Appropedia and Howtopedia, among others, with the approval of Practical Action. Neil Noble expressed to me (Chriswaterguy) a wish that these would be made inviting for readers to make improvements to these pages.
• AIDG - site (or blog only?) uses a CC-BY license. How do they document their appropriate technology work?
• Full Belly Project - explicitly describe their designs as open source - what exactly do they mean by this?
• Village Earth - to the extent that they set up the first appropriate technology wiki, The Appropriate Technology Wiki Project. It appeared hard to actively manage the wiki while still managing the organization, and in the end it was merged into Appropedia.

What is very clear from looking at examples such as these, is that the intent to share is present, but the techniques available for doing so have been very limited, and have not led to active OSAT development involving NGOs.

Commercial entities and OSAT

• The Open Toolbox "Vital Keys for Life-Embracing Communities" Co-founder Vinay Gupta states: "Our business model is to sell the service of doing this kind of training work to organizations that need it - NGOs, government, business - so the materials are fully open but if you want us to turn up and teach you these things, you pay for our time."

Open patents and other structures for open design

• [Open Innovation… bang bang bang bang bang, Jul 24th, 2008, blog post by Vinay Gupta. "Fundamental problem: copyright doesn’t cover *how* - doesn’t protect ideas, only expressions. Patents (can) protect ideas, but they’re expensive and uncertain". "I think we need to consider punching a hole in the international patent regime for bottom of the pyramid work - a statement of professional ethics which requires companies not to abuse patents and then we get NGOs and governments to require companies they buy BOP products and services from to be signatories to that agreement."
• Starting an anti-patent-abuse appropriate technology political bloc?, Discussion started July 23, 2008 by Vinay Gupta on Global Swadeshi.

Movements and networks

• open manufacturing list.
• Global Swadeshi forum & social network.
• WikiIndex: The Wiki Synergy Project (set up by Chriswaterguy) - more of a manifesto, intended as something to point people to.

Individual initiatives in open source

While individual efforts do not constitute "collaboration", an individual "open-sourcing" their work is enabling collaboration. Open licenses and the widely known concept of "open source" have enabled individuals to contribute to open knowledge even without necessarily being aware of any OSAT network or movement.

At times there may not even be an understanding of open licensing - just an expectation that by putting the information out there, someone will use it.

Examples include.

• Biodiesel Appleseed Reactor Plans - open-source' plans for biodiesel homebrewing equipment

Writings

(Work in progress - pardon the mess, and feel free to add to these lists.)

Directly related writings

A series of blog posts on OSAT have been written, in particular by (Frank Aragona?) of Agroblogger and Jeff McIntire-Strasburg of Sustainablog:

• Google hits for: "Open Source" "appropriate technology" on Agroblogger.com
• Agroblogger: Open Sourcing Appropriate Technology Part I, 17 Nov 2005
• Agroblogger: Open Sourcing Appropriate Technology Part II, 23 Nov 2005
• P2P wiki page: Agroblogger on the state of the Open Source Appropriate Technology movement
• Sustainablog: Building an Open-Source Community for Appropriate Technology, 11 Jan 2006. Responding to Agroblogger posts; brief post, endorses the concept of OSAT & mentions an open source design (Biodiesel Appleseed Reactor).
• Seven Generational Ruminations: (response to Sustainablog): Building an Open-Source Community for Appropriate Technology, David Herron, January 11, 2006
• Agroblogger: Crossing the AT Chasm (responding to the Sustainablog post). Talks about crossing the chasm from being used by visionaries to being used by pragmatists. "Open Source Appropriate Technology has the potential to come of age... But that won't happen until we build a vibrant user community, based on accepted standards with a set of commonly used practices and techniques." (Question: are those practices of design, principles, documentation, dissemination, or other? --Chriswaterguy 07:17, 18 November 2008 (UTC))
• Open Source, Development and Design, Jamais Cascio, January 17, 2006.
• Agroblogger: Agroinnovations Launches New Site March 1st, 2006. "...the tools are fully in place for a beta-deployment of a pilot Open Source AT community. Have a look: www.agroinnovations.com."
• Agroblogger: Playing Devil’s Advocate March 7th, 2006. "Open Sourcing through the mechanism of online communities is not a viable strategy for anything outside of software... A huge factor in the success of GNU/Linux, though not often noted as such, was the community's ability to use collaborative, web-based tools to their advantage. Naturally, software programmers would be able to use such tools, they created them!"
• Sustainablog: March is Open Source for Appropriate Technology Month Sustainablog (Jeff McIntire-Strasburg), March 7th, 2006
• Sustainablog: Hardcore DIY Sustainability Sustainablog (Jeff McIntire-Strasburg), March 9th, 2006 (refers to Vela Creations as a good example).
• Sustainablog: This, On the Other Hand, Might Do Some Good… Sustainablog (Jeff McIntire-Strasburg), April 19th, 2006
• Agroblogger: Open Source AT: What’s Next?, 18 Oct 2007: "It has been almost two years since I first began advocating for adapting an Open Source model to the development of Appropriate Technology."

Says there has been progress, mentions "A few online communities: Instructables.com, the Honeybee Network, Appropedia, and Howtopedia." (Note that there are different degrees of openness between these sites. --Chriswaterguy 17:10, 18 November 2008 (UTC))

Expresses concern about the multiple websites, and "having to reproduce the information four, five, six...times to give it full coverage on all of the different existing communities. What is becoming evident, is that a wiki is a very blunt instrument indeed for the much more detailed process of collaborative technology development. Open Source software is leaps and bounds ahead of the OSAT community. Linus Torvalds no longer submits much code to the kernel; by his own admission most of his time is spent tracking submissions from the community, and coding a sophisticated tool he has developed to keep track of those contributions.

"Similar tools for the OSAT community are conspicuously lacking. To move forward, we cannot continue to believe that simple tools like wikis and community forums will be sufficient to get full leverage out of the technology development, validation, and deployment process."

"Documentation could be written and updated on the fly, as the database is updated, changes would ripple through the community instantly..."

"Online communities like Instructables and Howtopedia may fall to the wayside when anybody with a LAMP server and an Internet connection can setup an entire OSAT development kit on their network. This doesn't mean that these groups wouldn't have a stake in the development of such a software package. I would imagine that their role would shift from central organizer to more of a tracking role, keeping tabs of changes in different projects and providing a searchable index of different information, much like the shift we have seen in the past 4 years from Kazaa to the Pirate Bay as the primary tool for file sharing. And, they could also provide an already configured backend for those people who don't have the bandwidth, the technical know-how, or the time (or any combination thereof) to setup their own LAMP server."

Comment by Chriswaterguy: "...Longing to see such tools developed... A wiki is a blunt tool - yes, and sometimes a blunt but flexible tool is needed. The design community (and the community at large) needs special design tools, as you say, but these must be integrated with methods of sharing broader information, experience and ideas, fact-checking, brainstorming and networking. Some form of wiki (whatever a wiki ends up looking like in future) will probably be central to the solution we develop in the next few years."

• Agroinnovations Podcast: Open Source AT and The Full Belly Project October 22nd, 2007
• Agroinnovations Podcast: Appropedia Roundtable Part I November 8th, 2007 (interview with two of the founders of Appropedia - Part II hasn't happened yet). "I spoke with Lonny Grafman and Curt Beckmann... of this premier open source AT wiki and online community. If you’re interested in OSAT, then THIS is the podcast to listen to."
• Agroinnovations Podcast: Open Farm Tech with Marcin Jakubowski May 22nd, 2008 "Marcin Jakubowski is one of the premier pioneers of open source appropriate technology and agricultural innovation. Guided by Gandhi’s principles of swadeshi, Marcin has made great strides in moving towards community-based development and local autonomy."

PESWiki writings

Although the emphasis is on unscientific "zero point energy" devices, some of the writings on the wiki do explore the idea of open appropriate technology:

• Article:What You Can Expect Open Sourcing Energy Technology
• Patent or Not to Patent a Free Energy Technology - some good points, but burdened by concern with technologies that are not scientifically accepted.

Other writings

• MIT Collabatorium
• Agroblogger: The First Advocate of Open Source 23 Feb 2006. Adam Smith "was also critical of trade secrets, believing that they stifled competition, undermined free markets, and had the same inflationary effect on natural prices as monopolies. Adam Smith would have immediately recognized the equalizing value of the Free Software Movement, and would have applauded its philosophical underpinnings as very much in line with his own."

Concepts, memes

• Open design or Open source hardware - often used to mean the same thing, However, according to Wikipedia, open source hardware usually refers specifically to computer hardware.
• Open Source Appropriate Technology - used especially by Frank Aragona. (Note that open source software is not a perfect equivalent of how this can work; the struggle is to make something functionally equivalent.)

Notes on these efforts

• Languages

Collations of open knowledge for international development

• Moulin - Focused on Wikipedia content. (French based, Africa focused plus Persian language. Renaud Gaudin spent several months volunteering with Geekcorps Mali. They're working with the US Peace Corps, in discussion with UNESCO? Apparently approached OLPC in the past, so they're interested in cooperating.)
• WikiAfrica
• The Jhai PC and Communication System, a project of the Jhai Foundation, is a computer and communications system designed to meet the needs of villagers in remote and rural areas. (Some thought has been given to providing content on the machines; openness is an expressed value of Jhai.)
• OLPC, through the XO laptop. (MOU with Appropedia being worked on now - Nov 2008)

Project output

Chriswaterguy is planning to blog and/or write on the wiki on these topics:

• Interviews for blogs
• Structure and syntax in OSAT

• What is appropriate technology exactly? What kinds of data, information, knowledge and wisdom are we sharing?

• Usability
• Dispersed efforts for OSAT - upsides, downsides;

• how to having our cake and eat it

• Open design licenses
• Give interviews: Agroinnovations; Ian Woolf and/or John August; approach NPR/ABC (Aust).

Possible areas of further thought and study

• Explore different software options.

• Can elements of a design be broken down in a way that they can be tracked in a "history"?

Notes