Let's be direct with this one. For me, openness, means a way of living. It can be seen from different perspectives, but openness is what it leads to take the best of us and make a better world.
In my life as a researcher I think of openness as the only possible way to do science. I've mentioned in my introductory post to the course about how important open-access journals are for science... but that's not all, that's not even the tip of the iceberg. Science is not a democracy as I've heard some people wishing for it, we cannot vote to see whether we "accept" the gravitational laws or not - now I may think that it's our fault to call them laws -. Science is science because it works here, in Mars, in Andromeda galaxy and beyond. What I want to say with this? well, when we talk about openness in science we have to share everything we do, the data we use, the programs we wrote to read/analyse such data, and of course and quite important, the documentation of the data and the programs. Otherwise, this is what, unfortunately, happens so frequently (via astrobetter):
I would go even further and say that we should all use open lab-books real time with our research, this will help a faster spread of knowledge and don't wait 3 years to someone publishing some results so you can use them (my last paper took more than 6 months to be refereed, and I got just one very minor comment!)
But, openness in science is just what covers my professional live. I'm a huge supporter of open software (partly because the importance of it for science) and I've got really surprised when I've read this comment in the pad for the hangout discussion that happened today:
I must say that I disagree with such comment. I would say that there's a misconception of what open-source means for the final user experience. Open source opens to everyone a huge community, and not just to developers. The final user gets a product with a confidence that there's a lot of people working in the development than just maybe 50 paid by a company, this will bring a more stable/less-buggy/secure code. Think also on the information that the close product is taking from you without letting you know about it, how much can you trust it? All right, you may not have the knowledge to look into, for example, Firefox code to see whether they are doing so, but there's a large amount of people that does and they have not found it. Also, most of the open-source software have a wishlist where you can suggest improvements/ideas and track their evolution (likewise reporting bugs you may find). And to leave this paragraph, the best of it, you can participate on it! Don't know how to program? don't worry, you can translate it, write tutorials, advertise it, etc...
After this parenthesis, I keep with my line of discussion of what openness means. Openness should be also applied in the government of a country, a community, etc. Think it in the smallest core of our society. How would a couple be able to be as such if they hide things between themselves? I cannot approve a government which does not show where they are spending the money, what negotiations with companies they are having and so on (I'm Spanish and a bit sensible with the situation we are having in the moment).
I believe that with openness we won't have a lot of misunderstandings we have in many facets of our life. This may be a too communist point of view, and I'm not in a situation where I depend of an idea which I should patent it, and get rich with it... Though, after reading The Public Domain (by James Boyle) I see patents and intellectual property with better eyes... if they are used as they were designed.
I think this is enough for today, I have now a lot to read and comment from others (I'm 2 days behind). Be Open! :)
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