Open Source... Mining?

farrellj writes "In mining, geophysical data is the "source code" of the industry, and is usually guarded as closely as Microsoft guards their source code for their programs, sometimes even more so. But one Canadian mining company opened up their data, and reaped the rewards of Open Source in higher profits. Read all about it at: FastCompany. NOTE: Originally seen on Linux Today."

Comments

Re:Hrm

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps, however, I can see plenty of hidden expenses of opening the source code up. If you wish to use source coded by outside parties, it's a good idea to hire people to maintain patches and to extensively review and test code not written in-house. In other words, with closed source, you can expect to trust the quality of the source written by anyone you license the source code to. With open source, you need to review what's submitted for quality, perhaps to better document the code, and to make sure it really does what it says it does. If you're up to the challenge, good luck. Go for it. But closed source isn't a bad option either.

Open source comparison is a sham

[gewalker]

Come, open source as usually perceived and promoted is that by "contributing to the public software" and "scratching an itch", much good comes to all as you everyone can then use this freely.

The valuable use of this data is pretty much restricted to the property owners of the gold mine. This was just a fancy version of a contest (not a random-lottery style one), whereby skilled competitors vie for the prize, but one without an entry fee, and no signup form. The data is inherently useless (in terms of mineral rights) to anyone that is not the property owner, or interested in control over what happends to the property (hostile takeover threat).

If Microsoft had been the property owner, this story would have been on Slashdot, decrying the shameless use of skilled dupes working for Microsoft and getting a small return on their investment of time & talent. The mine owners were clever enough to capitalize on the positive name association with "Open Source" more than anything. A smart business that take a gamble (hostile takeover threat, etc.) that paid off well.

Re:Open source comparison is a sham

[caduguid]

Honestly, my first reaction was just like yours. But I think maybe both of us were missing a bit of the point... There is a connection with open source, however narrow. (Enough that I wouldn't call the comparison a sham.)

Open Source/ Free Software and the like are loaded terms, and 'open source' in particular is almost more of a basket of loosely-related phenomenon than it is a specific thing. (Open Source Definition not withstanding.)

Some of the things in that basket are itch-scratching and enriching the public domain, to be sure. But there are other things in that basket as well. One, which is receiving a fair amount of academic attention, is "peer-enabled content production". It may have to do with methodology instead of ideology, but the open source movements have provided much of its source material.

So, was this contest "open source"? Well... there was open access to the known 'source' data of the mine. Is that enough for it to be open source? Maybe not. But it's enough for a comparison, imho. Was it peer-enabled production? Well... the winning entry was (I think) actually a collaboration of two teams, and they were 'peered' with the mine company halfway around the world. Enough for the label? I dunno. But sham seems too harsh.

It's not actually "open source" ...

[Taco Cowboy]

From the story I've just read, I get the feeling that the "opening up of the data" does not sounds like "open source".

Rather, I get the feeling that it sounds more like BOUNTY HUNTING.

Like bounty hunters, there is a target. All you need to do is to get the target and you get your bounty. That's just what the company does.

Re:It's not actually "open source" ...

[GigsVT]

Bounty hunting is a viable model for open source revenue though. If I see an open source program that almost does what I need, I'm likely to pay the programmer to add features that he might not otherwise. This is basically what Red Hat does with their large customers, and it's what every company can do by directly contacting authors.

Not Quite Open Source

[ajknott]

The company posted its data on the net, offered $500k in prizes, big deal. That much can easily be spent by hiring outside consultants to tell you where the gold is. The contest was inspired by Open Source, but I fail to see how making the data publically available makes it open source.

What did the company get for its efforts anyhow?

In one word: Lucky.

Lucky that an Australian firm looking for North American PR took a bath and lost money on creating a professional 3D model of the mine:

Although the prize money, which Archibald's team shared with Taylor Wall & Associates, barely covered the cost of the project, the publicity has boosted the firm's business. "It would have taken us years to get the recognition in North America that this project gave us overnight," he says.

Re:Not Quite Open Source

[Weird Dave]

Lucky that an Australian firm looking for North American PR took a bath and lost money on creating a professional 3D model of the mine:

Although the prize money, which Archibald's team shared with Taylor Wall & Associates, barely covered the cost of the project, the publicity has boosted the firm's business. "It would have taken us years to get the recognition in North America that this project gave us overnight," he says.

You don't know much about business. Anything that covers your expenses (which includes salaries, etc.) is a success assuming that you don't have other, more lucrative job offers. At the same time, this company got free advertising. In fact, since the cost of the project was barely covered, i.e. the reward was more than the cost, you could say that they were paid to advertise their product.

Oh give me a break

[FallLine]

What this company did is fundamentally different from the freedoms that you speak of. The benefits to society at large are practically non-existent in this company's case. The information that they shared was: A) of little risk to themselves because they owned the rights already (and because a failing company has little to lose) B) of little benefit to society. This situation is far more analogous to Microsoft releasing some of their source code with the condition that it can essentially only be used to make improvements to MS's product and virtually nothing else. If anything, Microsoft is a far more sympathetic case because it can be argued that there is educational value to their code and that they're taking a greater risk. While I'm no fan of Microsoft, I must admit that the open source advocates are being extremely hypocritical to praise this "open geology" on one hand and utterly dismiss Microsoft's claims on the other. Perhaps MS' open license isn't as "open" as other open source licenses, but nor is this mining example as "open" as it could be in the idealists minds (at least if we assume that they're capable of critical thinking). In the crackpot mindframe of the open source zealots this company *could* open their hard earned information without any additional protections that give them advantage over and above of those that recieve the data and charge a fee for support or some nonsense.

It is a shame that our intellectual property laws are such that these freedoms must be granted rather than assumed by default, making them (and their obvious benefits) so much rarer in our society than they need to be.

Yeah, because we all know societies that do this (e.g., China, Cuba, etc.) are vastly more productive places for ideas than the United States.....err yeah. Show me a time in history or a place in the world that has been as productive or spends as much money on research and development (proportionately speaking). The United States is extremely successful in this reguard because of our strong IP, not inspite of it. It may cost you, say, 100 dollars to purchase that textbook and that may be something of a negative, and of itself, but then you're taking for granted its creation and that its secondary benefits (i.e., your education from it, ideas you may have taken from it, etc) are generally free AFTER that point. For all the complaints of information being locked away, it simply does not stand up by and large. There is a TONS of information out there for anyone that wants it, it may cost a little something and take a little time, but the vast majority of information nonetheless available (and productive) to an extent that it's NOT anywhere else in the world (because it largely does not exist in those other places). EOF