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

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

Appropriate technology wikis

  • Open Source Technologies - PESWiki. Though the focus on "free energy" might be misguided,[1], 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.

Not quite "appropriate technology"

Wikis

Sustainable design, if not Appropriate technology:

Check:

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:

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

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.

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:

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."

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:

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

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).

Notes

  1. ↑ "zero point" energy are not only unproven, but rejected by the scientific community as impossible.
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