Category:Open source software

Open source and development issues

It is highly advisable that "Open source" licences such as the GNU Free Documentation License (read text) be considered for all written material and software related to development.

This allows free use and distribution of the material (free as in freedom, and free beer) and prevents people from being charged for the material. (Note that under many licences it is allowable to charge people for the cost of distribution, but not to impose any additional restrictions on what the person does with it.)

A relevant example is the clay pot filter, which was deliberately not patented, to avoid restrictions on people wanting to use the design. Though thought must also be given to ensuring that no one else will patent it. (It may be that if the design and use of the invention is clearly documented, that will prevent others from being able to claim it as their own...?) (Look into this, contacting the inventor to ask about this.^{[expansion needed]})

See The Green Road to Open Access: A Leveraged Transition by Stevan Harnad for a discussion of the positive access of open access on the pace of progress in research. "Cumulative research impact keeps being lost daily, weekly, yearly, because of access-denial to would-be users whose universities cannot afford the access-tolls." Not that this is particularly relevant to those in the "majority world" (and the less advantaged in wealthy countries) who cannot afford journal and database subscriptions.

Open source software

There are many examples, including:

Linux operating system
OpenOffice Office Suite
See Wikipedia:Open-source software for more.

Text

Project Gutenberg - are there texts here relevant to development? (Educational texts, texts for use by English learners?)

Open source projects related to development

English language learning and teaching: Wikibooks would be the ideal place to develop open source resources for this. It has some material already, that needs organising and developing. See Wikibooks:English as an Additional Language, and some more of these pages here. See also a major ESL discussion site, Dave's ESL Cafe, where there are many keen teachers who might be keen to join a collaboration.