{"id":68,"date":"2024-01-28T20:13:46","date_gmt":"2024-01-28T19:13:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs2.abo.fi\/jteixeir\/?p=68"},"modified":"2024-01-28T20:13:46","modified_gmt":"2024-01-28T19:13:46","slug":"how-to-introduce-the-open-source-concept-to-a-more-general-audience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs2.abo.fi\/jteixeir\/2024\/01\/28\/how-to-introduce-the-open-source-concept-to-a-more-general-audience\/","title":{"rendered":"How to introduce the open source concept to a more general audience"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">As early put by\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/SB10001424053111903480904576512250915629460\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Marc Andreessen (2011)<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, a well-respected serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist who co-founded Netscape and later sold to AOL for $4.2 billion, &#8220;software is eating the world&#8221;. Every industry ranging from oil, gas, financial services, healthcare, education, and even defense are increasingly powered by software.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Software matters for our modern societies. There should be no doubts about it. Still, few people realize the importance of open-source software. From my experiences of talking with highly educated professionals without formal computer-related education, many do not know what open-source means. Neither they can give examples. This is even if they use it (without realizing it) on their Apple computer, their BMW car, their Android-based smartphone, or their Samsung TV. Worst than that, many associate it directly with software that does not cost (that you don&#8217;t need to buy).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">To me this is surprising, one of the\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/gitnux.org\/open-source-software-statistics\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">latest industry reports<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0points out that:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">99% of new software projects rely on open-source components;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">78% of companies use open source software over proprietary software;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">96% of applications have at least one open-source component;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Open source makes up over 80% of the software code in use in modern applications;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The top contributor to open source projects on GitHub (a popular hosting service for open-source software projects) is Microsoft;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Over 70% of developers said that working on open-source software projects helped improve their skills;<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Still, it is easy to spot active university students, lawyers, politicians, nurses, doctors and professors who don&#8217;t know what open-source software is, nor have &#8220;never heard about it&#8221;. How can something so impactful in our society be not even noticed by the general population? Maybe this lack of awareness explains why my research proposals related to open-source software don&#8217;t get more funding. After, most software runs in the hardware, being often invisible for the common users.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The point is software is very important, open-source software is also very important. This is because most software is either: (1) open-source per se, or (2) largely dependent on it. Still, people do not understand the meaning of open-source software. Many never hear about it. Maybe they heard about Linux, Android, or Firefox, but not open-source software. Often misunderstanding the concept with the concept of freeware.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Due to my research and past professional experience, I got invited a few times of times to give a talk about open-source software. Often to a young audience at universities (i.e., guest lectures) or to local businesses in Finland (e.g., training, seminars, tech Tuesdays, among other internal events in companies). Here I share my approach to talking about open-source software in a more general audience:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Whenever encountering a not-techy audience, intending to enhance their understanding and awareness of open-source software, I start by asking them to rank by openness vs. closeness the following dyads:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Encarta\">MS Encarta<\/a> vs. <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Main_Page\">Wikipedia<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/SD_card\">SD card<\/a>\u00a0 vs. <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Memory_Stick\">Memory stick <\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/IOS\">iOS<\/a> vs. <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Android_(operating_system)\">Android<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/fi-fi\/windows\/\">MS Windows<\/a> vs. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.debian.org\">Debian Linux <\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.office.com\/\">MS Office<\/a> vs. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.libreoffice.org\/\">Libreoffice<\/a><\/p>\n<p>MS OneDrive vs <a href=\"https:\/\/nextcloud.com\/\">NextCloud<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.elsevier.com\/\">Elsevier<\/a> vs. <a href=\"https:\/\/plos.org\/\">PLOS<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This is a long process, often\u00a0 20 to 30 minutes, but usually leads to a lot of discussion.<\/p>\n<p>Then I highlight that &#8220;free software&#8221; is not &#8220;freeware&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 536px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/0\/04\/Free_as_in_freedom%2C_not_free_as_in_beer.png\" alt=\"Free as in freedom, not free as in beer \" width=\"536\" height=\"825\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">&#8220;Free&#8221; as in freedom, not &#8220;free&#8221; as in beer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Free as in freedom, not free as in beer. Most common languages have two words to refer to the &#8220;free&#8221; as in freedom, and &#8220;free&#8221; as in beer.<\/p>\n<p>I also use the tangram analogy to talk about the value of transparency.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 491px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/6\/6f\/Open-Source-Tangram-Analogy-Transparency.png?20240126102130\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/6\/6f\/Open-Source-Tangram-Analogy-Transparency.png?20240126102130\" width=\"491\" height=\"284\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Using tangram to explain about open source software &#8211; the value of transparency<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>And the value of a more relaxed IP regime.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 564px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/1\/16\/Open-Source-Tangram-Analogy-Intelectual-Property.png\" alt=\"Using tangram to explain about open source software - the value of an open intellectual property regime. \" width=\"564\" height=\"406\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Using tangram to explain about open source software &#8211; the value of an open intellectual property regime.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Finally I talk about my research with Abayomi Baiyere, where we argue that openness can be better understood across the dimensions of 1) transparency, 2)\u00a0 inclusiveness, 3) market, and 4) IP.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As early put by\u00a0Marc Andreessen (2011), a well-respected serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist who co-founded Netscape and later sold to AOL for $4.2 billion, &#8220;software is eating the world&#8221;. Every industry ranging from oil, gas, financial services, healthcare, education, and even defense are increasingly powered by software. Software matters for our modern societies. There should &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs2.abo.fi\/jteixeir\/2024\/01\/28\/how-to-introduce-the-open-source-concept-to-a-more-general-audience\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">How to introduce the open source concept to a more general audience<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":844,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-okategoriserade"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs2.abo.fi\/jteixeir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs2.abo.fi\/jteixeir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs2.abo.fi\/jteixeir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs2.abo.fi\/jteixeir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/844"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs2.abo.fi\/jteixeir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs2.abo.fi\/jteixeir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84,"href":"https:\/\/blogs2.abo.fi\/jteixeir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions\/84"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs2.abo.fi\/jteixeir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs2.abo.fi\/jteixeir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs2.abo.fi\/jteixeir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}