>For technology to be truly sustainable, it must be globally available and independent. The open distribution of sustainable technology, knowledge and data provides the basis for an ecological and economical global economy. This secures the access to vital resources such as stable climate, soil or water for everyone in the long term.
Yeah, look I'm all for FLOSS, but I don't like this stating conjecture as fact nonsense that is the bread and butter of western elites and technocrats one bit. It poisons the well.
The global scientific consensus shows that climate change is a real global problem. The many FLOSS projects on our list show that institutions around the world come to the same conclusion through a variety of open data sets and models.
It is true that, as everywhere else, there are black sheep (i.e. Climategate). But these are the exception.
We think that the discussion should include everyone interested in this development, we need an improved way to create "open facts".
To keep the scientific discussion and discoveries as open and transparent as possible, we propose to built an "open fact pipeline". As seen in the slides related to this list (slide 10, https://protontypes.eu/protontypes_open_sustainable_technolo...).
Proposed pipeline model:
Open Models and Data -> Open Tools -> Open Execution and Server -> Open Results -> Open Discussion -> Open Science and Facts
Just out of curiosity, are there any studies on the demographics of FLOSS support? I'm quite curious - with no specific goal in mind - about where the most ardent supporters are, in what fields they work, at what age, and so on.
This is the central statement of our organization. Thank you for pointing it out. I have now made our organization as the originator of this statement clear.
Imagine how much better the world would be if we harvested your orgnans and gave them to a dozen people who would die without them. Yes it might be bad for you personally, like the author who starves, but think of the bigger picture.
Now imagine a world where donors can voluntarily give one of two working kidneys to people who need them to survive, and you have a much closer analogy. Still not quite there, but at least not as unnecessarily alarmist.
If anything is going to make a dent on climate change and provide a way forward for sustainable energy generation it would have to be scaling up the share of nuclear (to 25-50% of overall share) with new and safer reactor designs that move away from outdated cold war technology we are still using.
4th generation nuclear does not exist yet. Building a nuclear reactor just with existing tech can easily take a decade. Building a nuclear reactor that has never been built before with a completely new concept will take at least another decade to develop from a concept to a real working thing.
Even in the case that any of the concepts discussed as 4th generation nuclear will work at all (there's a whole number of previous "new nuclear" concepts that have been tried and never went anywhere), it won't matter in the time most crucial for climate mitigation.
it doesn't really make sense to scale up a form of power that's 2-4x the cost (more if you include research costs for newer designs) just because it can act as baseload. Over producing, demand shaping and storage will be cheaper.
Nuclear is only financially viable because the government subsidizes it - usually to maintain weapons technology.
So what if it's 2-4x the cost if it's clean? I assertthe externalities of pollution are afar more than 2-4x. I also strongly doubt that it _is_ 2-⁴x as expensive.
What's the use in free knowledge how to build a turbine (or God forbid, a nuclear reactor) when all labor, materials, energy and machinery involved in its construction cost money?
That's right, the only use is that investors can save a hefty bit on the knowledge part. That's nowhere near the external looks of ideals of FOSS (but pretty much in line with its internal gist).
Knowledge is built by iterating on previous knowledge - having freely available knowledge around on how to build turbines or reactors makes it far more feasible to develop better versions of those existing designs. It's not just about the money involved in construction, albeit that could be a factor too.
Arguably safety can benefit, too. Open designs allow anyone to inspect both an initial design, and also the modifications that are made to that design over time.
Because not everything in all contexts costs "money". Plenty of people have built turbines (or even reactors!) by collecting parts they either come by, get gifted from others or build themselves.
Believe it or not, some communities do help others without exchanging money, even though it's not very common. To be of the view that free knowledge is worthless because things cost money is a dangerous view that basically says you need to have money in order to take advantage of free knowledge.
I'm not sure if you're purposefully not understanding my counter-argument, but I'm gonna assume you're arguing in good faith here.
Your original argument was that because "labor, materials, energy and machinery" cost money, there is no use of free knowledge.
My counter-argument is that the one with the knowledge is not necessarily the same person/community that provides the label, materials, energy and/or machinery.
So it's still useful to have free and open knowledge published and consumed, as you never know who can be helped by it, no matter if they have the funds to use it or not. Others might have the funds, and can help by providing material etc.
My argument was never that money is evil and shouldn't exist anywhere, not sure why you went there.
Hope this helps you understand what I meant with my previous comment.
Money is not only saved on knowledge creation.
Open designs facilitate construction and maintenance for users in developing countries. They can be adapted to local needs and the dependency on manufacturers is reduced.
True that, but did anyone count how many tools created by hackers for hackers had enabled the furious growth of monstrosities like Google, Amazon, Facebook etc, which I guess can't be more opposite to ideals of hackers?
And on the other hand, did those tools empower hackers themselves? Other than quick and dirty prototypes, did those result in any products to empower common people? Last open source GSM phone project I was subscribed to lingered for years, postponed release for lack of funding and finally, I guess, was abandoned. But at the same time I see shop shelves crammed with dirt-cheap locked-down surveillance contraptions from big known corporations who shamelessly use FOSS tools in their development.
Or is it just an inevitable vicious cycle of all opposition becoming exactly the entity it opposed?
Yeah right, because that has worked so well in IT. Where people are enslaved into browsers on mass surveillance devices and "Clouds", made possible by F/OSS (Linux, KHTML). It all started by re-implementing POSIX; the moment F/OSS is starting to innovate (rarely enough), monopolization of knowledge sets in, followed by commercial and governmental extortion.
My advice would be to return to open standards not open implementations, to keep options going forward for future generations.
[[citation needed]]
We think that the discussion should include everyone interested in this development, we need an improved way to create "open facts". To keep the scientific discussion and discoveries as open and transparent as possible, we propose to built an "open fact pipeline". As seen in the slides related to this list (slide 10, https://protontypes.eu/protontypes_open_sustainable_technolo...).
Proposed pipeline model: Open Models and Data -> Open Tools -> Open Execution and Server -> Open Results -> Open Discussion -> Open Science and Facts
> For technology to be truly sustainable, it must be globally available and independent.
Imagine how much better the world would be if we harvested your orgnans and gave them to a dozen people who would die without them. Yes it might be bad for you personally, like the author who starves, but think of the bigger picture.
If anything is going to make a dent on climate change and provide a way forward for sustainable energy generation it would have to be scaling up the share of nuclear (to 25-50% of overall share) with new and safer reactor designs that move away from outdated cold war technology we are still using.
The main reason for not appearing on the list is that there are practically no open projects in this field.
ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) apparently relies on open source software, but we could not find any open documentation for this project. (https://www.iter.org/newsline/-/3316) The Open100 project is similar. (https://www.open-100.com/) We have found only one big project that is really open and active: Paramek (https://github.com/ukaea/paramak).
Even in the case that any of the concepts discussed as 4th generation nuclear will work at all (there's a whole number of previous "new nuclear" concepts that have been tried and never went anywhere), it won't matter in the time most crucial for climate mitigation.
Nuclear is only financially viable because the government subsidizes it - usually to maintain weapons technology.
Solar and wind are almost absurdly cheap. It barely makes economic sense to build anything else.
That's right, the only use is that investors can save a hefty bit on the knowledge part. That's nowhere near the external looks of ideals of FOSS (but pretty much in line with its internal gist).
Believe it or not, some communities do help others without exchanging money, even though it's not very common. To be of the view that free knowledge is worthless because things cost money is a dangerous view that basically says you need to have money in order to take advantage of free knowledge.
- Those were not produced for free
> get gifted from others
- Others paid for those
> build themselves
- Out of free materials or without any need to buy food and pay bills?
> things cost money is a dangerous view
It's dangerous only to idealistic outlook where money is evil and not a mere heat carrier.
Now, banksters' interest-driven monetary system based on debt is evil, but that's another topic.
Your original argument was that because "labor, materials, energy and machinery" cost money, there is no use of free knowledge.
My counter-argument is that the one with the knowledge is not necessarily the same person/community that provides the label, materials, energy and/or machinery.
So it's still useful to have free and open knowledge published and consumed, as you never know who can be helped by it, no matter if they have the funds to use it or not. Others might have the funds, and can help by providing material etc.
My argument was never that money is evil and shouldn't exist anywhere, not sure why you went there.
Hope this helps you understand what I meant with my previous comment.
Wasn't this orange website supposed to be "Hackers" News?
And on the other hand, did those tools empower hackers themselves? Other than quick and dirty prototypes, did those result in any products to empower common people? Last open source GSM phone project I was subscribed to lingered for years, postponed release for lack of funding and finally, I guess, was abandoned. But at the same time I see shop shelves crammed with dirt-cheap locked-down surveillance contraptions from big known corporations who shamelessly use FOSS tools in their development.
Or is it just an inevitable vicious cycle of all opposition becoming exactly the entity it opposed?
My advice would be to return to open standards not open implementations, to keep options going forward for future generations.