On being open and what that means
Comments(2) I’ve been meaning to post for a while on Oxford Archaeology‘s Open Archaeology Project, also known as our “Open Ethos”, then what do you know, Joseph posts about it and says it so well that I might just as well repeat his post verbatim. I won’t though- then you might go and read the other blog, and wander around on the internet for a while finding out interesting new things . Pop back here when you’re done, if you like!
In short, “Open Archaeology” comprises three strands: open standards, open access, and open source. We see this as the only logical way of fulfilling our remit as a commercial archaeological organisation, and an educational charity. Our job is to record the cultural remains that are damaged or destroyed by development. Our remit is to make those records available in perpetuity, to anyone who wants to see them. At the end of the day, pretty objects in museums are of little use without the background information that gives them context and fires the imagination.
While the three strands are not the same thing (as they are often made out to be), open data is useless without open standards and open software. Open software is useless without open data and open standards. You get the idea.
I’ve recently been asked if our commitment to open source software was a financial decision, or an ethical one. It’s both, I suppose, but our Open Archaeology project should show you that it’s part of a bigger thing than simply saving money on licenses.
I like the ethos, but I think there’s some conflict in practice between the open access and open standards bits. While developers do get open access to OGC standard docs (despite a weird EULA that would best be replaced by Creative Commons licensing), the OGC remains a “pay to play” operation. There’s no open access to the process. ISO is entirely closed. There is no open access to the process or to the results.
Hi Sean,
I agree that the OGC’s process seems a little convoluted and closed, but I can’t really see an alternative to that right now. I guess people can continue lobbying for the OGC to change their process- in fact that’s pretty much the only option unless you fancy setting up another standards body. From the perspective of the user though- at least open standards should mean that we can open our files in 20 years time, which is of course our big concern, notwithstanding the day-to-day hassles of people coming along with proprietary database formats (for example) that we are supposed to guess at and buy software to open…