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Open Source Methods Useful Way Beyond Software

Posted by Zonk on from the spreading-the-word dept.

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."

5 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Open source and human nature by h4rr4r · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes it would could then work, and there is already a name for this system...
    Marxism
    For the Americans in the crowed conveniently leave out the fact that it is a form of communism when you mention it. Otherwise you will be stoned to death or moderated into oblivion as I am sure I will be

  2. Re:Academic Peer Review by gowen · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I have read academic papers with 30+ authors
    Sure, that's pretty common in some fields (Biotech, for example). But 300+ authors? 3000? How many authors would you say the Linux kernel has?
    If the change history shows that the grad student did all the work, maybe they will actually get the credit they deserve?
    Well, that does presuppose that check-ins correspond to workload. And remember, if a supervisor has the original idea and devises the techniques to answer some question, and the grad student does all the grunt work, who's to say that the grad student deserves the credit? In that scenario (not universal, but not uncommon) he's replaceable in a way the supervisor isn't.
    --
    Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
  3. Academic research itself _is_ ... by slabbe · · Score: 5, Informative

    a lot like open source. And has been so for quite some time. I publish my results, stating what I have been doing and precisely how. If I can as many other people as possible to use my results and ideas, I will gain respect in the scientific community (a lot of references). Regarding the publication process, open archives such as arxiv have been gaining in popularity for a long time, see e.g. http://arxiv.org/show_monthly_submissions

  4. Re:yep.. by Ignignot · · Score: 5, Funny

    You better hope no one installs any trojans through your back door...

    --
    I submitted this story last night, and it didn't get posted.
  5. Re:Duh by lionheart1327 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I know I'll probably get modded down for this because of the stigma of the evil "C" word, but here we go.

    Open source, and the volunteer way in which it is done, is basically the utopian communism that the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, etc. were striving to get to, but fucked up.

    Real communism is not people being forced to be "equal". It is the unselfish sharing of everything, and volunteering your time and effort for the greater good.

    Now, people can't seem to share their physical goods, but on the Internet it seems that some people are willing to share virtual goods. When it doesn't really hurt you to give your neighbor a hand, it seems that people are willing to do it.

    Of course, there are those like the RIAA and the MPAA, that are completely against it, but most Slashdotters seem to be for it.

    So maybe Bill Gates is right, and Linux is communist?

    Well, if you take away the prejudice against the "C" word caused by decades of propoganda, maybe thats actually a Good Thing?