By: Vinay Gupta

Vinay Gupta — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 03:44:30 +0000

Hm. So are you talking about SourceForge for appropriate technology? That could be ThinkCycle - check it out. Or more like Google Code? Or more like one of the open source project management tools? What's the closest analogy in the pure-software ecosystem? That would really help me understand what you want to create! Vinay

By: Chriswaterguy

Chriswaterguy — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 02:39:40 +0000

Good work! Longing to see such tools developed. My focus is on information and networking rather than software though, so I'll be cheering from the sidelines (and pointing some people in your direction). A wiki is a blunt tool - yes, and sometimes a blunt but flexible tool is needed. The design community (and the community at large) needs special design tools, as you say, but these must be integrated with methods of sharing broader information, experience and ideas, fact-checking, brainstorming and networking. Some form of wiki (whatever a wiki ends up looking like in future) will probably be central to the solution we develop in the next few years. When OSAT software is developed, integration with a wiki will be an important part of making it accessible, effective and high-impact. I'm one a co-founders of Appropedia , the largest and most active wiki on appropriate technology or sustainability issues (and the home of Hexayurt information resources) so it's not surprising I think this way - we give a lot of thought to this broad question. Re "the prospect of having to reproduce the information four, five, six...times to give it full coverage on all of the different existing communities" - absolutely an important issue. We have placed a lot of emphasis on synergy, and about 7 wikis have merged to form the current Appropedia site - happy to place the grander vision above our own personal success or failure. We're continuing to explore partnerships with other organizations, and ways of feeding and cross-searching information to ensure that it's easily accessible. Btw, check out our partners, Open Architecture Network doing excellent work with open source design. There are others in the Appropedia network who are more software savvy than me, who'll be very interested in your comments, so I'll send them the link. Don't let the conversation die - keep in touch.

By: What’s next for the Open Source Appropriate Technology movement? » P2P Foundation

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:24:22 +0000

[...] In Agroblogger we find the following item describing what needs to be done to bring AT on a par with developments in the field of software: [...]

Comments on: Open Source AT: What’s Next?

By: Vinay Gupta

By: Chriswaterguy

By: What’s next for the Open Source Appropriate Technology movement? » P2P Foundation