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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."
If a mine has exclusive rights to mine in the area it has surveyed, what is the incentive to hide the geological data? After all, any additional information that outsiders provide based on the data will either help the mine or at worst help a neighboring mine. In neither scenario will the first mine be hurt if anyone else sees their data. So I don't see how the culture of secrecy became so ingrained.
For either deep sea or deep space based search, mine and recovery?
These are the folks that came up with the 3D mine map - so it looks like it was a good investment for them.
And so it looks like the Open source model has been proven valid in areas outside of computing.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Sorry, this bothers me, just thought of another analogy.
Say Microsoft publishing its source code on the Internet, with the restrictions against using the data for profit (equivalent to mineral rights), and runs a contest whereby cash prizes acrue to winners for quality bug fixes or other enhancements.
Has MS suddenly gone open source? hardly. MS would be exposed to much more financial risk than the mining company in this comparison, as the source code is arguably valuable to competitors wishing to drill in MS fields. MS would be keeping all IP legal rights (just like the mineral rights), and noone would be saying, "Wow another open source success story."
Between the new high-grade discoveries and the mine's modernized facilities, Red Lake is finally performing along the lines that McEwen had envisioned. In 1996, Red Lake was producing at an annual rate of 53,000 ounces at $360 an ounce. By 2001, the mine was producing 504,000 ounces at $59 an ounce. On the open market, gold currently trades for about $307 an ounce. The grade of the ore at McEwen's mine is extraordinarily high, confirming his suspicion that the vein that ran through the neighboring mine continues through Red Lake.
is this a typo?
53000*360 = $19,080,000
504000*59 = $29,736,000
while the second number is larger than the first i find it hard to believe the price dropped from 360 to 59 in 5 years. if it was 60 in 1996 it would make more sense.
-- john
Open source comparison is a sham
No, it isn't a sham, but it is a poor choice of wording.
Free Software, Free Media, and Open Source are subsets of a much more fundamental, and important, concept, namely freedom of information, freedom of thought, and freedom of expression, which together might be termed simply freedom were it not that that particular word has been so abused by pundits over the last century as to have lost much of its meaning. These freedoms are antithetical to secrecy at their most basic levels, and in their consiquences, whether that is secrecy of information, secrecy of methodology, or secrecy of design (to name just three).
So, while mapping the benefits of open and free information to those of open and free software is a bit of a misnomer, clearly the underlying theme that free information is, unsurprisingly, bringing the same benefits to this particular mining company that free source code does to software companies is a valid parallel to draw, in that these benefits are a consiquence of freedom of knowledge and freedom of information, in other words, of the freedoms being granted, of which free software and free geological data are but two small examples.
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.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
One of the problems faced by small software development houses in the scientific field is acquiring enough sample data that allows for meaningful testing of algorithms. Since most geophisical data is considered intellectual property of exploration companies it is closely guarded and hard to obtain unless you're already established in the market and have good reputation. Artificially generated data just doesn't have the same qualities real life samples have. I have seen the same algorithms work perfect on artificial SEG-Y data that crumbled when exposed to some real life heavily faulted seismic.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
Fractal Graphics hardly "took a bath" on the exercise. Prior to the Challenge, the company was stuck between a faltering minerals market and a faltering IT market. Additionally, it's nigh-on impossible for small Australian firms (FG employed around 16 people at the time) to get publicity/recognition in the North American markets through traditional means.
FG got essentially free publicity in its largest target market, Goldcorp got just about the best possible modelling and analysis of its data. Both parties have had huge grins on their faces ever since. In particular, FG has gone from strength to strength.
Disclaimer: I work for FG and am one of the original developers of our key software systems.
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