"I’ve been building open source software technology for NGOs for over a decade, and I have a confession: we’ve been living a lie. For years, I firmly believed that open source was the moral imperative that would democratize technology for the Global South. I championed platforms that could be fr
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eely downloaded, customized, and deployed by anyone. I evangelized the virtues of collaborative development and shared knowledge. Today, as I watch our sector implode under the weight of USAID’s near-total elimination, I realize we’ve built a movement that’s structurally impossible to sustain. Our open source revolution in global development just hit the brick wall of economic reality. Our obsession with open-everything has created organizations that are fundamentally incompatible with financial sustainability. We’ve spent decades perfecting the art of giving away our intellectual property while simultaneously begging donors for the money to keep the lights on. The recent cuts of US foreign aid dollars are a reckoning for an entire sector that chose ideological purity over business sense." (Introduction)
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"The EU’s conflict early warning system is a good example of how to integrate quantitative risk forecasting with traditional diplomatic and intelligence analyses to support the prevention of violent conflict. The system holds important lessons for other multi-method and multi-source early warning
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processes, even beyond conflict prevention – for example to analyse foreign influencing operations and critical economic dependencies. The system’s weak spot is the lack of mechanisms to ensure sustained preventive action. To bridge this gap, the EU should consider anticipatory action protocols with stronger follow-up mechanisms and dedicated funding. Upgrades of the warning system should include complementary foresight methods to detect developments that are hard to predict with current data models, more structured qualitative assessments, and thorough evaluation of preventive instruments." (Summary)
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"More than 80 percent of open source researchers that participated in two Bellingcat surveys indicated that finding the right tools can be challenging. This is where our new Online Investigations Toolkit comes in: it not only helps you discover tools in categories like satellite imagery and maps, so
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cial media, transportation or archiving, but is also designed to help researchers learn how to use each tool by providing in-depth descriptions, common use cases and information on requirements and limitations for each toolkit entry. Most of the tools included can be used for free. This is the first time in Bellingcat’s 10-year history that we are opening our toolkit to contributions from the wider open source researcher community. A dedicated group of volunteers, our Toolkit Maintainers and Guardians, help us keep this toolkit up to date and are involved in further improving it. Since it is still a work-in-progress, we expect the number of tools in the toolkit to grow over time." (https://www.bellingcat.com)
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"Open source software (OSS) is the backbone and driver of digitization across sectors worldwide. This makes OSS a cornerstone of every society and economy, including the core of national security concerns. Therefore, governments have a vested interest in OSS security. At the same time, governments,
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as large users of OSS, bear some of the responsibility for supporting the OSS ecosystem. To assume responsibility, governments must understand the existing OSS communities and the culture surrounding OSS. Governments will be able to effectively foster OSS security only if they work with the ecosystem stakeholders. Doing so requires governments to adhere to guidelines such as respect, cooperation, collaboration and sincerity. In addition, governments must identify their own role(s) in consultation with the OSS ecosystem. Governments can serve as internal coordinators, role models, supporters and regulators. The role of internal coordinator requires governments to be more transparent and systematic in their own use of OSS. In particular, they should take stock of what is being used, where exactly the components are being used and how they are used. As role models, governments engage with OSS, adhering to best practices in the ecosystem and encouraging other governments and stakeholders to do so. As supporters, governments actively engage with the OSS ecosystem, mobilizing and channeling resources into it through various means. Governments use their regulatory powers to create a legal framework that reflects the characteristics of the OSS ecosystem. They can mix and match from different roles and shift between them as they gain more experience, trust and credibility in the OSS ecosystem." (Executive summary)
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"These Guidelines recognize the value of ODL as one of the most sustainable methods for overcoming the educational barriers faced by persons with disabilities. They also highlight and illustrate the facets of an ODL- facilitated education system using open educational resources (OER), free and open-
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source software (FOSS) and open access (OA) research. These Guidelines provide an overview for governments, institutions, educators and instructional designers, along with quality assurance and recognition bodies, when developing ODL platforms, processes and related aspects of ODL and reviewing courses with a view to incorporating the needs of users living with disabilities." (Back cover)
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"Mehr Freiheit und mehr Demokratie waren die großen Versprechen des Internets. Doch inzwischen konzentriert sich die Macht bei einigen wenigen Tech-Giganten. Dabei bietet das Netz selbst eine Lösung, um sein ursprüngliches Freiheitsversprechen zu bewahren: die nichtkommerzielle digitale Gegenwelt
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. Zu ihr zählen etwa die Online-Enzyklopädie Wikipedia, die Twitter (X)-Alternative Mastodon, der Browser Firefox oder der Messenger Signal. Es liegt an uns, wie stark wir die digitalen Herausforderer machen. Stefan Mey stellt in Porträts die Protagonist*innen, Ziele, Strategien und Geschäftsmodelle der digitalen Gegenwelt vor. Von ihnen gibt es weitaus mehr, als wir gewöhnlich denken. Sie sind die digitalen Gegenstücke von Greenpeace, Attac oder Amnesty International und formen die digitale Zivilgesellschaft. Um das Internet besser, fairer und freier zu machen, muss man nicht Informatik studieren, kein Start-up gründen und auch kein Hacker sein." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"The aim of this Open Science and Peacebuilding Toolkit is to provide an open, living collection of resources for innovation hubs operating in conflict or post-conflict environments, creating a joint framework for open science and peacebuilding in action. It seeks to enable makerspaces across the wo
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rld to contribute to sustainable development by becoming key players in creating circular economy structures. The toolkit is an open source document. It provides resources appropriate to communities at various levels of development and supports innovators in a range of sectors & throughout the entrepreneurial life cycle." (Introd, page 3)
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"In this article we consider the notion of digital global public good and articulate our understanding of it. Against this conceptual foil, we examine the development of DHIS2 (District Health Information Software Version 2), a global health platform inspired by public goods, focusing on the paradox
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es that arise in the scaling process. We find that the scaling dynamics played out differently at the macro and micro levels, giving rise to the following paradoxes: addition of new functionalities to cater to the universe of users across the world (macro level) works counter to the needs of users in particular locations (micro level); responsiveness to the requests of the donors with a global view (macro level) distorts the production process, as the voices of users, situated in remote locations in developing countries, are not adequately heard; the system needs to be simultaneously relevant across the global (macro level) and the local (micro level), when the former calls for decontextualization and the later (re)contextualization. We then discuss challenges these paradoxes create with regard to attaining non-rivalry and non-exclusion, the defining characteristics of a public good." (Abstract)
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"The FNF Global Innovation Hub published in 2022 this guide using easily understandable language and examples of daily scenario that civil servants and the public encounter to help readers to painlessly grasp technical terms such as open source, FLOSS software, and open standard. Also, the Guide exp
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lains why Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) is the key to improve transparency, accountability, accessibility, and effectiveness of public digital service. It enables readers to establish Public Money? Public Code! as the mindset of perceiving public digital service: If a public digital service is built by using tax payers’ money, it should be supervised and examined by them as all public infrastructure. Finally, the Guide also provides practical policy recommendations on enhancing the use of FLOSS in governments." (Publisher description)
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"Both the challenges to a democratic internet and challenges to internet access make clear that good digital products accessible to us all are not natural byproducts of digitalisation. Instead, they require coordinated proactive and joint efforts by the global community in order to come into being.
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Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) presents an opportunity for global civil society to engage in this process of digital development, create transparency and empower its citizens. We need a global civil society to hold agency in co-creating the digital transformation. Free and Open Source Software is of huge potential to diversify the tech industry with many positive impacts, also for all of us: an open source focused, diversified digital ecosystem helps us in enhancing data security and fostering an independent, free internet. By following a multistakeholder approach, it limits the influence of monopolies, enables participation by start-ups and innovative new actors as well as civil society. FOSS is an approach to learning on both sides, and by sharing knowledge and innovation." (Foreword, page 2-3)
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"This is a report on the health of the open-source digital safety tool ecosystem that draws from the BASICS experience. Internews' BASICS project (Building Analytical and Support Infrastructure for Critical Security tools) was a 30-month initiative to strengthen the capacity of open source digital s
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afety tool development teams ("tool teams") to better understand their vulnerable users, respond to urgent security and privacy threats, and evaluate their impact. BASICS set out to address the unique challenges faced by tool teams in order to improve the protection of the users of these tools. Vulnerable populations, such as human rights defenders and marginalized groups, count on independently-developed open source digital safety tools not only to provide safety and censorship circumvention, but also to avoid reliance on cloud-based services which can be censored or hacked, and to protect themselves from costly licensing issues when using commercial tools. Many of the most popular and most critical open source digital security tools are maintained and updated by "tool teams" rather than businesses or organizations. These ad-hoc groups have little if any institutional capacity, are often under-resourced, and have limited insight into the specific needs of at-risk users." (Publisher description).
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"Como se podrá observar en cada una de las páginas del texto, en realidad las tecnologías están diseñadas para incrementar los mecanismos de penetración del capitalismo y otras formas de dominación en cada una de las esferas de nuestras vidas. En este sentido, es menester observar las relacio
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nes sociales bajo las cuales se construyen y desarrollan, sus fines y su capacidad de asombrarnos ante las posibilidades que nos ofrecen. Sólo un análisis crítico de estas contradicciones nos puede permitir transformarlas para convertirlas en herramientas que, no sólo rompan estas formas de dominación y fetichización, sino que coadyuven a la realización de los objetivos, sueños y deseos que las propias personas, colectivos, organizaciones o comunidades han decidido autónomamente llevar a cabo. La comunicación y sus tecnologías, como es señalado por las propias experiencias de comunicación y es bien acogido en las líneas de este texto, no se ven como fines en sí mismas. A diferencia de lo que ocurre en los medios de comunicación masiva o en las grandes empresas de telecomunicaciones en donde se piensa en productos o contenidos para vender o hacer propaganda. En las experiencias de comunicación como las que se recogen en el libro, la comunicación es vista a partir del proceso social en el que se construye de manera colectiva un determinado mensaje. En este proceso es en donde reside la importancia de estas experiencias; no se trata del mensaje o el producto final en sí mismo, sino en la capacidad y el diálogo que se genera en todo el proceso. Las tecnologías son sólo herramientas que se necesitan analizar críticamente y transformar para que se logren los objetivos que las mismas comunidades, organizaciones o colectivos se propongan." (Prólogo, página 9-10)
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"The concept of ‘the commons’ has been used as a framework to understand resources shared by a community rather than a private entity, and it has also inspired social movements working against the enclosure of public goods and resources. One such resource is free (libre) and open source software
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(FLOSS). FLOSS emerged as an alternative to proprietary software in the 1980s. However, both the products and production processes of FLOSS have become incorporated into capitalist production. For example, Red Hat, Inc. is a large publicly traded company whose business model relies entirely on free software, and IBM, Intel, Cisco, Samsung, Google are some of the largest contributors to Linux, the open-source operating system. This book explores the ways in which FLOSS has been incorporated into digital capitalism. Just as the commons have been used as a motivational frame for radical social movements, it has also served the interests of free-marketeers, corporate libertarians, and states to expand their reach by dragging the shared resources of social life onto digital platforms so they can be integrated into the global capitalist system. The book concludes by asserting the need for a critical political economic understanding of the commons that foregrounds (digital) labour, class struggle, and uneven power distribution within the digital commons as well as between FLOSS communities and their corporate sponsors." (Back cover)
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"Este manual no pretende en ningún caso ser conclusivo, ni ofrecer recetas para migrar a software libre, quiere ser un espacio que reúne experiencias como coordenadas comunes de la brújula que marca la política tecnológica y de contenido de ALER. Por ello, dejamos abierta la posibilidad de segu
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ir dialogando sobre acuerdos que nos permitan profundizar la incidencia en favor de los derechos humanos y de la naturaleza, que se nos hace tan urgente en nuestra Abya Yala. Tenemos el gusto de compartir este manual de Migración a tecnologías libres que responde a la iniciativa de pensar, proponer e intercambiar prácticas comunicativas orientadas al Buen Vivir, que como sabemos, son diversos y variopintos caminos que están en debate y construcción permanente. Invitamos a dejarnos interpelar, a cuestionar nuestras rutinas de producción, con el compromiso ético que nos permita hacer los mundos que necesitamos a través de la palabra." (Presentación, página 4)
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"This Open Source Documentation Guide aims to help you understand what you can do to prepare real open source documentation, how you come up with open source solutions, finalised products and overcome challenges in process and methods." (Page 2)