Hello Bryan,
I'm glad to read your reply, thanks for it. You raise two points that
need to be debated that I definitely considered. The meaning of "open
source" is a hot topic, I do not have a real academic background nor
support, so it makes the task even more challenging !
"we have deliberately kept this definition simple in order to encourage
debate rather than reach a definitive conclusion."
The main thesis of the paper is to see how this concept of "open source"
can extend to other kinds of resources beyond software, with open source
deviating from source files rather than source code. Because "source
files" is a used terminology for other kinds of resources, because the
notion of "open source", even if not that widespread, has already been
used and theorized to specify this availability. And like with
software, we see this similar pattern between the editable format and
its rendered/compiled/compressed one.
It leads then to this idea of "open source resources" more broadly
because it seems meaningful in many regards, like for educational
resources in open education or research documents in open science.
*The ability to modify resources is at the core of my reasoning, and it
is definitely meant to support the release of source files in other
openness movements with this goal in mind. *But what if sources are
released without granting these rights, I'm not sure what should be said
and this ambiguity is intentional to allow these debates to take shape.
Unlike the OSI I'm not exactly sure what "open source" may mean, just
that it seems to apply to a lot of resources. I am guided by the doubt
necessary for the advancement of knowledge, not through certainties that
are more likely to lead to indoctrination.
I invite for further research to question these aspects, to explore more
about what "open source" may mean for digital and open resources, of
course, but also for software.
"As creating new terminology is a well-established tradition in disputes
surrounding the meaning of open source, one might suggest doing so here
— yet we believe instead that along with the democratisation of other
openness movements we are witnessing the evolution of a concept that is,
all things considered, relatively new."
Because the core of these notions is the availability of source
file/code, all of these terminologies are confusing and simply social
constructs around the OSD. Source available, based on the OSI view, is
not really the absence of ability to modify; it's restriction around it
(unclear and undefined notion[s] anyway). The true extension of your
reasoning is not to add the ability to modify, it is to specify that
"open source resources" should provide source files and comply with the
OSD. What are the justifications? OSI/OSD do not even care about these
other resources but we should follow their rules; there isn't really any
rationale to it.
Given for example that a lot of OER come with non-commercial clauses,
because education sector has another culture and can collaborate in
these settings, even if they provide source files it would exclude most
of their work from being able to qualify as « open source » even if all
may be fine for them. Like it or not, other movements are way more open
regarding this openness spectrum/degree of openness. I doubt it would be
wise to carry over these semantic conflicts emerging around the OSD into
these other domains.
"Open" is a confusing word, perhaps it's not worth trying to pin down a
precise meaning to it. As "open source" is about source at first, the
aim is to refocus the debate on the availability of sources. I don't
believe that renaming would be a good choice, an extension seems more
natural and it's already happening.
Open source is a political concept, this paper is political and does not
pretend to be falsely neutral. It is also a profound critique of the
Open Source Definition as a basis for defining "open source" in software
and even more beyond!
« One of the meeting’s important results was a general agreement that,
in all the variant definitions, public access to source was the most
important and only absolutely critical common element. » Eric Raymond, 1998.
Simon
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