Re: [OSS] Open-Source Software Debate Reaches Ivory Towers

You still here that is is no money in OSS? Well here you get 101 Ways of
making money from OSS http://www.freeroller.net/page/ceperez/20030611 . In
the Swedish government we use a lot of OSS applications and the use is
increasing.

In the beginning of this year I was hopefull that there would be som
localized OSS applications avaliable really soon. I do not know the status
of these projects anymore.
What happened to the OpenCD project? How many applications are localized
into vietnamese today? How many vietnamese applications are realeased as
free and opensource?

Does any University in Vietnam use open source applications in there
education/training? At the OSS seminare in Hanoi last year I got the feeling
that one or two were considering the possibility to do just that.

Joakim Löfkvist

----- Original Message -----
From: "Vern Weitzel" <weitzel@undp.org.vn>
To: <joakim.lofkvist@telia.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2003 11:50 PM
Subject: [OSS] Open-Source Software Debate Reaches Ivory Towers

> Subject: ICTD News for 17 September 2003
> Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2003 09:05:01 -0400
> From: ICTD Newsmaster <ictdnews@undp.org>
> Reply-To: nitobserver@sdnp.undp.org
> To: ictdnews@undp.org
>
> http://sci.newsfactor.com/perl/story/22281.html
>
> Open-Source Software Debate Reaches Ivory Towers
>
> By Mike Martin
> NewsFactor Network
> September 12, 2003
> http://sci.newsfactor.com/perl/story/22281.html
>
> "The culture of open-source development is fundamentally
> similar to peer review in academia," says Stanford
> University researcher Sanatan Rai. "The work is reviewed by
> other experts and is available for open scrutiny. Hence
> mistakes are found, and errors corrected."
>
> The near-absolute democracy of open-source software is
> tantamount to academic peer review, the process by which
> important research passes the scrutiny of expert critics to
> get published in major journals, argues a Stanford
> University researcher.
>
> "I have equated the open-source system to the system of peer
> review in academia," writes Sanatan Rai, of Stanford's
> management science and engineering department. "The
> advantages of the latter are clear to all, and the same
> advantages can be found in the case of open-source software
> development."
>
> Please note that this material is copyright protected. It is
> illegal to display or reproduce this article without
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> marketing or public relations literature. To obtain reprints
> of this article for authorized use, please call a sales
> representative at +1 (818) 528-1100 or visit
> http://www.newsfactor.com/about/reprints.shtml. Generation Y
> Be Free
>
> To a young generation weaned on e-mail, instant messages,
> hyperkinetic computer games, and open-source software, the
> democracies of computer science have laid low information
> barriers everywhere. Music is free, movies should be, and
> typed Google searches have replaced thumbing through the
> colorfully indexed pages of the US$5,000 Encyclopedia
> Britannica.
>
> To a young generation of scientists coming of age during the
> information revolution, peer review -- a notoriously
> divisive and undemocratic process -- may seem as familiar as
> the open-source free-for-alls that have created Linux,
> LaTEX, and a host of other openly-available software
> products, Rai suggests.
>
> "The culture of open-source development is fundamentally
> similar to peer review in academia," Rai told NewsFactor.
> "The work is reviewed by other experts and is available for
> open scrutiny. Hence mistakes are found, and errors
> corrected."
>
> Inherent differences between the two forums do exist,
> however.
>
> "Academic peer review is linked to journal publications,"
> Rai noted. "The aim in case of research papers is the
> validity of scientific conclusions."
>
> Reviewing open-source software, however, is primarily a hunt
> for bugs. With open-source software, Rai explained, "bugs
> are more likely to be detected and eliminated," in contrast
> to the closed-source alternative -- a system that too often
> leads to "poor design and implementation."
>
> A Peer Reviews
>
> Comparing open-source software to academic peer review may
> be a "naive" reading of both processes by computer
> scientists who "idealize peer review," says George Mason
> University computational neuroscience researcher James Olds.
>
> "A competitive aspect is present in peer review that can
> represent a direct conflict of interest," Olds told
> NewsFactor. "Such potential conflicts of interest are not
> present in the open-source process -- that I can see."
>
> Scientists may receive papers to review that compete with or
> are similar to their own work, explained Olds, who also
> directs the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study. With major
> funding decisions largely based on publication in top
> journals, "peer review has an inherent conflict of
> interest," Olds maintains.
>
> Case Closed?
>
> Peer review, in fact, may resemble closed-source software
> review more closely, Olds remarked.
>
> "Peer review has its own set of problems that a fair number
> of long-term scientists believe discourages high-risk,
> high-reward research," he said.
>
> Along those lines, "there has been a major push by some of
> the bigger companies, based on the closed-source model, to
> stifle testing and review," Rai points out in his paper.
> "Not surprisingly, the first victims were researchers who
> pointed out major flaws in the design."
>
> Regardless of their similarities and differences, though,
> peer and open-source review strive for the same goal, Rai
> explained.
>
> "The purpose of peer review is to ensure the quality of
> published papers," he said. Likewise, open source is part of
> "the mechanism that makes for good software."
>
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