Open Source Methods Useful Way Beyond Software

Tom Steinberg writes "Former head of policy at the British Prime Minister's office, Geoff Mulgan, has co-authored a paper on uses of Open Source methods in arenas far beyond the normal Sourceforge universe. The paper is jointly written with Tom Steinberg, head of UK civic hacking fraternity mySociety and explores the use of open source methods to improve academic peer review, drafting of legislation and even media regulation."

Comments

Making a video documentary, OSS style

[Cryofan]

I am making a video documentary, which will be licensed as Creative Commons. I hope that when I finish it, it will serve as an inducement to other people (leftists) to take it and improve upon it. A collaboration of people working over the internet, using OSS procedures and OSS collaboration software, could possibly improve upon it so much that it could be much better than most documentaries shown on broadcast or cable tv.

It is possible to do that. Remember that the script and video and audio footage, along with the editing, are major parts of any documentary. And these aspects of a documentary could easily be improved by collaboration. Of course, because the footage--even in the improved version--would likely consist of older public domain footage obtained downloaded over the net, along with semi-amateur video interviews, the look of the finished product would not be as good as you get over cable tv, DVD, or even or over broadcast. However, once the finished documentary is released for downloading, the viewers would not expect that much anyway.