Is Public Knowledge Project truly open source ?

[AbcSxyZ]

[Follow the beginning of a private discussion, I suggested doing it openly to discuss the meaning of « open
source » in knowledge areas]

Public Knowledge Project website: https://pkp.sfu.ca/

Context messages

I intended to have a quick dip into your Open Models - Brick of Knowledge site and I ended up there for much longer
(it's really interesting) and wondered if you would include PKP (Public Knowledge Project) in your definition of truly
open source (by your current definition)?
I struggle with a number of players in the 'open access' and 'open source' space who qualify those terms with minimal
participation (and maximum commercial leveraging of the terms) but would feel more of a conman than I already do if I
think I'm on the OS high ground and I'm not really.
[Me mainly asking to open the discussion on this open source confusion]
On open source, I feel that we (PKP) abide by what 'we think' is a truly open source project. The community govern the
roadmap and everything we do is published in open repositories. But, I wanted to know what you thought as an unbiased
external observer.
I do take the moral high ground with other software projects that use the term to establish their 'higher values'
statement. But I do that from a self-satisfied and smug stance that assumes that we are better than thou. So, I was
just wondering what you saw and thought of relative projects in this open access / open source space.
To me, I feel comfortable with PKP as being 'open source'. In fact, I'd suggest we make life very difficult for
ourselves by fulfilling all the open objectives and responsibilities. Sometimes I kind of wish I could just take a few
commercial shortcuts.

An initial reply

In your definition of truly open source

The fact is that there is precisely no definition of « open source » in this brick of knowledge, on purpose. The whole challenge being to know what « open source » could mean.

I think there's a friction here between a literal meaning and implicit dimensions given to the concept. Would it be openwashing without collaboration in a purely mercantile environment ? When sources are "open" (available), it seems fair to be qualified as open source. Why it wouldn't ?

The issue may be that there is too many ideas embedded in the notion of « open source », which brings multiple interpretations varying from the basic release of sources to this complex collaboration. This different dimensions around open source are not sufficiently distinguished to compare different open source approaches ? Perhaps a vocabulary problem where words are lacking in this comparison.

The collaboration and governance aspects may be something else than « open source », coming on top of available sources. What about a term of « open source » being effectively nothing more than the opening/release of sources ?

To reduce misleading implicit, should comparisons be done more between dimensions like "open collaboration" practices than "open source" practices? To effectively qualify project maturity/models according to more relevant criteria than source availability + license.

Looks like similar to the Haacked situation in « Open Source and Open Source Software Are Not The Same Things »: https://open-source-undefined.org/resources/open-source-reflections.html

But how "truly open source" would you be if « open source » is not something about software ?

It looks like various kinds of digital resources need access to some sort of "sources" to enable modification. You see it with documentation, we can have it with open educational resources where some argues specifically about Open Source Educational Resources.

It's common to have a resource available in a final format (like pdf) under an open license, with the right to modify it without the ability to do so because of a lack of raw materials, its sources.

If « open source » is more about « open source resources » than software, what is then your open source maturity degree ? A discussion that raises questions about the way science is conducted, and without being a scientist myself, I must admit that I have some doubts whether the proliferation of frozen articles is a good way of conducting science.

This idea of bricks/base(/branch) is not unrelated to this line of reasoning, which leads me to wonder if we will move more towards bodies of knowledge.

What if science has so little grasp of « open source » that it is not yet technically possible to build on each other's work through digital technologies 🙃?

Before judging what could be "truly open source", I will prefer to try to understand what open source is. My reply for now is that "Open Source Undefined" !