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GW's Open Source Programs Office
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Define Project Registry eligibility #54

Open labarba opened 4 months ago

labarba commented 4 months ago

The Project Registry page simply says:

The Project Registry tracks open source projects at GW

Students, faculty, and staff are encouraged to register publicly available projects to help us recognize and strengthen our GW open source community.

It should have some language about eligibility of projects to be listed.

First we need to define clearly those eligibility conditions. At minimum, a project needs to have a public license. Additionally, we might explain that projects should align with the Open Source Definition.

labarba commented 4 months ago

Open Source Definition: https://opensource.org/osd

Notes:

What about works that are not software? The freedoms stipulated above should still be granted. Item 2 of the OSD, however, cannot be applied in that case: "The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source code…" We fall back to the Open Definition: https://opendefinition.org/od/2.1/en/ One concern is the following requirement: "the individual elements of the work can be easily accessed and modified." In particular, certain multi-media content types do not allow easy modifications and derived works, e.g., videos. Text-based content on PDF format is also difficult to modify to produce derived works, although it is generally possible to export the PDF to an editable format (Word, Google docs). The better scenario is that the content has a source that is also open, e.g., LaTeX or Markdown files.

labarba commented 2 months ago

June 19, 2024, email to Alexa:

We are still defining the strict contours of scope for the Project Registry, and have a range of views within the team. I am of the opinion that the registry should include projects that align with the Open Source Definition, which is of course focused on software. If we embrace a broader scope as OSPO beyond software, in particular welcoming open educational resources, then those projects should align with the Open Definition, which applies to other forms of content.

Your film course materials are licensed under CC-BY-NC, which is an accepted license in the OER world, and satisfies most of the conditions of the Open Definition—except non-discrimination (“The license must not discriminate against any person or group.”) You can read about why a non-commercial rider is problematic in this section of our licensing tutorial https://gw-ospo.github.io/oss-licensing/license_your_own_work.html#what-about-a-non-commercial-cc-license

In rigor your OER project would not qualify under a strict alignment with open source freedoms, but here is where we remain uncertain within the team, as David holds the view that we should be as inclusive as possible. Given this, and that we still feature just a few projects, your film course remains listed. But in the future we may revisit. In general, regarding multi-media content for educational purposes, my sense is that the Library should have a different place to feature those projects. Currently, it appears that the Library does not have a home for showcasing OER produced at GW. Perhaps we can work with them on that in the future.

david-lippert commented 2 months ago

Other OSPOs project registry links