voicesofopensource

Modern EU policies need the voices of the fourth sector Traduit en français. It’s good news that the European Commission is now considering th […]

Open Source shaking up document databases, setting new standards Currently there is no Open Source common interface for document databases, but […]

Open Policy Alliance: A new program to amplify underrepresented voices in public policy development On behalf of the Open Source Initiative and the […]

OSI’s comments to US Patent and Trademark Office OSI submitted its comments to the United States Patent and Trademark Office to defend Open Source […]

Digital activists and open movement leaders share their perspective with Open Future in new research report, “Shifting tides: the open movement at a turning point” Open Future conducted a study to gain a better understanding of the current state of the open movement, as seen through the eyes of people actively involved in its endeavors and leading organizations within the movement. Open Future believes that a shared movement identity and a shared advocacy agenda can make the collective effort stronger. This study aimed to see whether this perspective is shared and whether it can form a basis for building a shared movement agenda for the decades to come. With this study, Open Future was interested in identifying trends that transform the movement and understanding the challenges and needs of activists and organizations as these changes occur. They also set out to understand how and whether the open movement can be perceived as a whole. There have been studies and reports focused on a single field of openness, such as Open Access or Open Data, but relatively few attempts to understand this broader activist space. This most recent study focused on a qualitative survey of open movement leaders. The report, which you can read in its entirety here, can be summarized into sections: Speaking with open movement leaders Most interviewees reported learning of the open movement through participation in copyright reform activism and policy. Others were introduced through: Open Source and Open Hardware activism Open Knowledge, Open Access, Open Education, or Open Data activism Community-building work Their employers, entering the field with no previous activist background Open Activism as a social movement Open Future proposed the following working definition for the open movement: The open movement consists of people, communities, and organizations who (1) contribute to shared resources online that are available for everyone to use and reuse, (2) and/or advocate for non-exclusive access and use of information resources. However, although the research project began with the assumption that there is an open movement which can be defined and whose boundaries can be traced, the interviews found that there is little collective sense of such a movement. Moreso, there is a collective sense of the open movement as a loose network, tied together by value alignment. The open movement, at a turning point as seen by its leaders This section shows how the movement is shifting. Interviewees have been observing changes, and argue for further change. Open Future analyzed these shifts in four categories: The people The zeitgeist The world The sustainability of the open movement The need for change Factors both internal and external to the movement were identified in the study. Collectively, the following needs were revealed: Need for new voices Need for new narratives Need for relevance Need for maintenance Ways forward To address these needs, those interviewed resonated strongly with two ways forward: A shared agenda Advocacy as a driver for collective action You can download a full copy of the report at this link: https://openfuture.eu/publication/shifting-tides/ You can provide feedback directly in the publication here or by writing to Alek Tarkowski at alek@openfuture.eu. Images created by Open Future. The post Digital activists and open movement leaders share their perspective with Open Future in new research report, “Shifting tides: the open movement at a turning point” appeared first on Voic […]

OSI calls for revision of disclosure rules in CRA OSI is a co-signatory of an open letter sent this week to the European Parliament by European […]

Now is the time to define Open Source AI You’ve seen so many announcements about new releases of AI large language models, foundational models, t […]

Action needed to protect against patent trolls The Linux Foundation, Unified Patents and Electronic Frontier Foundation hosted a webinar this week […]

The AI renaissance and why Open Source matters Sharing knowledge and sharing code has always been a key driver for innovation in Artificial […]

Regulatory language cannot be the same for all software In reviewing the language and concepts being used in the various draft bills and directives […]

Why open video is vital for Open Source The news that the European Commission’s competition directorate (DG COMP) has decided not to conduct a ful […]

Webinar: ClearlyDefined proceeding towards a clear governance structure The ClearlyDefined project was invited to give an update as part of the […]

Another issue with the Cyber Resilience Act: European standards bodies are inaccessible to Open Source projects One of the proposals in the Cyber […]

The Cyber Resilience Act introduces uncertainty and risk leaving Open Source projects confused What might happen if the uncertainty persists around […]

The vital role of Open Source maintainers facing the Cyber Resilience Act This year’s Maintainer Month feels different given what’s happening wit […]

What Is Open Governance? Drafting a charter for an Open Source project Building a healthy Open Source community is much more than just choosing an […]

The importance of Open Source AI and the challenges of liberating data (This post is taken from a speech given remotely at LLW 2023 by OSI […]

Things I learned at Brussels to the Bay: AI governance in the world Powerful Artificial Intelligence technology is pressing more questions on Open […]

Open Source ensures code remains a part of culture As Lessig observed in his 1999 book “CODE, and other laws of cyberspace”, a citizen’s practi […]

Why advocacy and outreach matter Despite a 25-year history, Open Source is still misunderstood or misrepresented. I still read about developers, a […]