open source in the physical world?
December 10, 2006 7:54 PM Subscribe
open source in the physical world?
i was doing some mindmapping and came up with a concept that i thought i'd throw out -- to see if it's been done already. basically, the concept is:
you've got skills/talents/knowledge -- you put that out there
i have a question or a need for the skills/talents/knowledge
you, if you have the time, devote time or resources to my question or need
this would be a non-profit situation -- people get credit for the work they do and receive some type of feedback from that. but no money.
that's the basic idea, i didn't know if it has already been done somewhere. if it is, please let me know so i can go participate.
i was doing some mindmapping and came up with a concept that i thought i'd throw out -- to see if it's been done already. basically, the concept is:
you've got skills/talents/knowledge -- you put that out there
i have a question or a need for the skills/talents/knowledge
you, if you have the time, devote time or resources to my question or need
this would be a non-profit situation -- people get credit for the work they do and receive some type of feedback from that. but no money.
that's the basic idea, i didn't know if it has already been done somewhere. if it is, please let me know so i can go participate.
Actually - there are many different forums for this sort of thing.
And really, in some ways you are almost talking about a 'reputation' based system of mutual recognition. There are a few nebulous systems starting (see boingboing for more).
However, if this is for non-profit, charitable-type work I know that there is an group putting together a website for this type of thing - I just don't know if it will be internal-only (silly) or open to the public.
posted by jkaczor at 8:03 PM on December 10, 2006 [1 favorite]
And really, in some ways you are almost talking about a 'reputation' based system of mutual recognition. There are a few nebulous systems starting (see boingboing for more).
However, if this is for non-profit, charitable-type work I know that there is an group putting together a website for this type of thing - I just don't know if it will be internal-only (silly) or open to the public.
posted by jkaczor at 8:03 PM on December 10, 2006 [1 favorite]
There is lots of stuff like this happening on the net. For example the teardrop camping trailer enthusists have developed a general plan [PDF] to build your own teardrop that essentially distilled the knowledge of hundreds of builds by the members. And it's been refined as people have built them in the same way software is.
posted by Mitheral at 8:29 PM on December 10, 2006
posted by Mitheral at 8:29 PM on December 10, 2006
As other people have said, this is volunteering. But it's not necessarily the same as the 'open source' mentality.
The traditional open source contributor isn't usually acting purely altruistically. More often than not, you work on a project because you've got a personal itch that needs scratching -- a bug in the software that trips you up daily, or a new program or feature that you'd like to see.
Admittedly, once you get sucked into it, you do start working on bugs/features that do not directly affect you. But point still remains that you're helping to build software that you're going to use.
A real-world analogue would be a group of people banding together to build a local community hall that they will all use and benefit from. But I contend that pure volunteering -- putting in your time, effort and skill to someone else's project for a result that isn't going to affect you or benefit you directly -- isn't really an 'open source' mentality.
Of course, people do volunteer freely, but only for things that they consider 'good causes'. You might help staff a phone line for abused kids, for example, but you probably wouldn't help build Johnny Rich's new three-car garage for free. But the way you've phrased your proposal doesn't seem to distinguish between these two situations.
posted by chrismear at 12:11 AM on December 11, 2006
The traditional open source contributor isn't usually acting purely altruistically. More often than not, you work on a project because you've got a personal itch that needs scratching -- a bug in the software that trips you up daily, or a new program or feature that you'd like to see.
Admittedly, once you get sucked into it, you do start working on bugs/features that do not directly affect you. But point still remains that you're helping to build software that you're going to use.
A real-world analogue would be a group of people banding together to build a local community hall that they will all use and benefit from. But I contend that pure volunteering -- putting in your time, effort and skill to someone else's project for a result that isn't going to affect you or benefit you directly -- isn't really an 'open source' mentality.
Of course, people do volunteer freely, but only for things that they consider 'good causes'. You might help staff a phone line for abused kids, for example, but you probably wouldn't help build Johnny Rich's new three-car garage for free. But the way you've phrased your proposal doesn't seem to distinguish between these two situations.
posted by chrismear at 12:11 AM on December 11, 2006
actually amazon just started up something like this, called askville. i believe it just went live in the past couple of days.
they incentivize participants to ask questions, and also to provide quality answers, by giving various types of electronic token rewards. it's an interesting concept - similar to metafilter, but with a unique sort of reward system. it will be interesting to see how/if it evolves into something useful.
posted by jjsonp at 4:08 AM on December 11, 2006
they incentivize participants to ask questions, and also to provide quality answers, by giving various types of electronic token rewards. it's an interesting concept - similar to metafilter, but with a unique sort of reward system. it will be interesting to see how/if it evolves into something useful.
posted by jjsonp at 4:08 AM on December 11, 2006
Theres a lot of similar ideas out there. A lot of music remix sites work on more or less this principle. ccmixter for example. People upload original bits of music to get feedback and have other people reuse them.
It's at least partially physical (people playing real instruments and recording it).
As the first post mentioned, ask.metafilter.com seems like exactly what your talking about. Albeit it's not "physical".
Advogato is a long running open source developer site that includes a trust metric and a "ranking" system. bugzilla.gnome.org awards "points" to people using the system based on there activity.
But I may be misunderstanding the question. How "physical" are we talking? Building a house? Lending an (artifical) hand?
posted by alikins at 9:32 AM on December 11, 2006
It's at least partially physical (people playing real instruments and recording it).
As the first post mentioned, ask.metafilter.com seems like exactly what your talking about. Albeit it's not "physical".
Advogato is a long running open source developer site that includes a trust metric and a "ranking" system. bugzilla.gnome.org awards "points" to people using the system based on there activity.
But I may be misunderstanding the question. How "physical" are we talking? Building a house? Lending an (artifical) hand?
posted by alikins at 9:32 AM on December 11, 2006
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by jkaczor at 8:00 PM on December 10, 2006 [1 favorite]