Open Source Scientists (OSS) is an international non-profit advocacy and legal organization with the stated purpose of promoting the use of open source principles in disseminating technology, artworks, and education. Its stated main goal is to educate scientists and engineers (and, increasingly, artists), as well as the general public, about the uses of open source models in research, manufacturing, education, and other fields.
OSS has recently been noted for its strong criticism of the Russian government over its policies toward the Russian teams responsible for the creation of the MyBO4 virus.
News[]
On October 18, 2019, the founder of Open Source Scientists, infrarad, released the following statement:
A statement from Open Source Scientists
Membership[]
While originally a loose coalition of scientists, engineers, programmers, and industrial designers, the organization (or perhaps more accurately, the identity) now includes academics, economists, social critics, artists, and others. The terms "identifying as open source" or "identifying as OSS" are sometimes used to denote an agreement with fundamental open source principles, even by individuals who do not officially participate in the legally recognized organization. This is in keeping with [world trends] on identity in a post-institutionalism, post-nationalism society.
Open Source artists[]
By publishing methods, scripts, production techniques, choreography, etc., artists in a variety of media are able to spread performance art beyond geographical boundaries.
Open Source farmers[]
Open Source musicians[]
Franchised musical groups are nothing new. Despite advances in telepresence and sound synthesis technology, the undefinable charms of live music have never been fully duplicated with technology. Simultaneously, criticisms of the carbon footprint of large touring companies effectively ended the era of the World Tour. In response, enterprising bands began to license their music and likenesses so that they could reap the benefits of touring without leaving their home stage. In recent years, this has led to the rise of bandsourcing, the practice of creating a unique look and musical philosophy in the hopes of finding like-minded musicians to collaborate on songwriting, recording, and performing. All bands perform in their locales; songs written by each band is shared among the rest to create a common discography; and recording is either distributed to the most technically skilled musicians, or all the bands are mixed into a gestalt custom track so that listeners may choose their favorite line-ups.
One anonymous critic wrote: "This 'band-chising' supercomputes the songwriting process, allowing bands to debut, peak, break up, reform, release a ballad record, break up again, and reform for the nostalgia circuit within six months, all without us having to endure the tedious solo projects."
Open Source manufacturers[]
Philosophy[]
Since OSS has grown, many concepts of open source have been developed. Nevertheless, certain common ideas are referred to in the OSS community.
"Paid for thinking, not for thoughts" (PTNT)[]
This is shorthand for the concept that people in technical fields should be paid for the act of solving technical problems and, having created an innovation, should share the innovation, and resume the business of solving problems. This is also sometimes referred to as "the academic model," the idea being that academics may be seen to "publish papers for a living" but do not financially benefit from a well-read paper, nor suffer financially (though perhaps in reputation) from an ill-received paper.
Notable cases and activism[]
2000-2010[]
- http://openfarmtech.org - entire industrial ecology
- http://openfarmtech.org/weblog - look for videos of the tractor and biodiesel gear
- http://vinay.howtolivewiki.com - "free science and engineering in the global public interest" - inventor of the hexayurt refugee shelter, superstructing at http://hexayurt.com/superstruct