Download or read book Free and Open Source Software and Technology for Sustainable Development written by Sulayman K. Sowe and published by UN. This book was released on 2012 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A global collection of experts in social, natural, and human sciences, with contributions from researchers and practitioners in both developing and developed countries, cover the theoretical and practical implications of FOSS technologies. While FOSS development, education, and business potentials may appear as a phenomenon for the developed world, a sizable number of developing countries have implemented FOSS policies of their own. Empirical and anecdotal evidence continues to demonstrate the potential of FOSS technologies for giving people the opportunity to participate actively in the development and shaping of their own technology, stimulating the growth of indigenous software industries, creating local jobs, and lowering technology acquisition and deployment costs.

Download or read book Open Source Systems Long Term Sustainability written by Imed Hammouda and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-09-22 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International IFIP WG 2.13 Conference on Open Source Systems, OSS 2012, held in Hammamet, Tunisia, in September 2012. The 15 revised full papers presented together with 17 lightning talks, 2 tool demonstration papers, 6 short industry papers, 5 posters and 2 workshop papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 63 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on collaboration and forks in OSS projects, community issues, open education and peer-production models, integration and architecture, business ecosystems, adoption and evolution of OSS, OSS quality, OSS in different domains, product development, and industrial experiences.

Download or read book Breaking barriers the potential of free and open source software for sustainable human development a compilation of case studies from across the world written by Nah Soo Hoe and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a compilation of 14 case studies on the successful deployment of free and open source software (FOSS) in select projects from Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe and Latin America. In each case study, the reasons for choosing to use FOSS together with the development, implementation, and impact of the FOSS applications are discussed. The benefits obtained and challenges encountered as well as any valuable lessons learned are also highlighted. This books aims to provide policy makers and development practitioners with useful insights as to why FOSS may be more suitable than proprietary software for use in information and communications technology (ICT) development, especially in poorer economies.

Download or read book Free and Open Source Enterprise Resource Planning Systems and Strategies written by Atem de Carvalho, Rogerio and published by IGI Global. This book was released on 2011-12-31 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Free/Open Source Enterprise Resource Planning systems (FOS-ERP) are gaining popularity and acceptance due to two main factors: their lack of licensing fees and customizability. Given this, organizations are able to easily adopt and manipulate these systems to meet their individual needs. Free and Open Source Enterprise Resource Planning: Systems and Strategies unites research on FOS-ERP, comparing differences with proprietary Enterprise Resource Planning products, and demonstrating key research factors. It includes cases demonstrating how small enterprises have benefited from FOS-ERP in Spain and in Belgium, along with difficulties encountered and solutions developed. This essential reference addresses key issues such as security and legal risks, as well as challenges, opportunities, and barriers to adoption.

Download or read book The Success of Open Source written by Steve WEBER and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much of the innovative programming that powers the Internet, creates operating systems, and produces software is the result of "open source" code, that is, code that is freely distributed--as opposed to being kept secret--by those who write it. Leaving source code open has generated some of the most sophisticated developments in computer technology, including, most notably, Linux and Apache, which pose a significant challenge to Microsoft in the marketplace. As Steven Weber discusses, open source's success in a highly competitive industry has subverted many assumptions about how businesses are run, and how intellectual products are created and protected. Traditionally, intellectual property law has allowed companies to control knowledge and has guarded the rights of the innovator, at the expense of industry-wide cooperation. In turn, engineers of new software code are richly rewarded; but, as Weber shows, in spite of the conventional wisdom that innovation is driven by the promise of individual and corporate wealth, ensuring the free distribution of code among computer programmers can empower a more effective process for building intellectual products. In the case of Open Source, independent programmers--sometimes hundreds or thousands of them--make unpaid contributions to software that develops organically, through trial and error. Weber argues that the success of open source is not a freakish exception to economic principles. The open source community is guided by standards, rules, decisionmaking procedures, and sanctioning mechanisms. Weber explains the political and economic dynamics of this mysterious but important market development. Table of Contents: Preface 1. Property and the Problem of Software 2. The Early History of Open Source 3. What Is Open Source and How Does It Work? 4. A Maturing Model of Production 5. Explaining Open Source: Microfoundations 6. Explaining Open Source: Macro-Organization 7. Business Models and the Law 8. The Code That Changed the World? Notes Index Reviews of this book: In the world of open-source software, true believers can be a fervent bunch. Linux, for example, may act as a credo as well as an operating system. But there is much substance beyond zealotry, says Steven Weber, the author of The Success of Open Source...An open-source operating system offers its source code up to be played with, extended, debugged, and otherwise tweaked in an orgy of user collaboration. The author traces the roots of that ethos and process in the early years of computers...He also analyzes the interface between open source and the worlds of business and law, as well as wider issues in the clash between hierarchical structures and networks, a subject with relevance beyond the software industry to the war on terrorism. --Nina C. Ayoub, Chronicle of Higher Education Reviews of this book: A valuable new account of the [open-source software] movement. --Edward Rothstein, New York Times We can blindly continue to develop, reward, protect, and organize around knowledge assets on the comfortable assumption that their traditional property rights remain inviolate. Or we can listen to Steven Weber and begin to make our peace with the uncomfortable fact that the very foundations of our familiar "knowledge as property" world have irrevocably shifted. --Alan Kantrow, Chief Knowledge Officer, Monitor Group Ever since the invention of agriculture, human beings have had only three social-engineering tools for organizing any large-scale division of labor: markets (and the carrots of material benefits they offer), hierarchies (and the sticks of punishment they impose), and charisma (and the promises of rapture they offer). Now there is the possibility of a fourth mode of effective social organization--one that we perhaps see in embryo in the creation and maintenance of open-source software. My Berkeley colleague Steven Weber's book is a brilliant exploration of this fascinating topic. --J. Bradford DeLong, Department of Economics, University of California at Berkeley Steven Weber has produced a significant, insightful book that is both smart and important. The most impressive achievement of this volume is that Weber has spent the time to learn and think about the technological, sociological, business, and legal perspectives related to open source. The Success of Open Source is timely and more thought provoking than almost anything I've come across in the past several years. It deserves careful reading by a wide audience. --Jonathan Aronson, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California

Download or read book Optimizing Contemporary Application and Processes in Open Source Software written by Khosrow-Pour, Mehdi and published by IGI Global. This book was released on 2018-02-02 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As is true of most technological fields, the software industry is constantly advancing and becoming more accessible to a wider range of people. The advancement and accessibility of these systems creates a need for understanding and research into their development. Optimizing Contemporary Application and Processes in Open Source Software is a critical scholarly resource that examines the prevalence of open source software systems as well as the advancement and development of these systems. Featuring coverage on a wide range of topics such as machine learning, empirical software engineering and management, and open source, this book is geared toward academicians, practitioners, and researchers seeking current and relevant research on the advancement and prevalence of open source software systems.

Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Geospatial Technologies and Society written by Alexander J. Kent and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-08-17 with total page 868 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Handbook of Geospatial Technologies and Society provides a relevant and comprehensive reference point for research and practice in this dynamic field. It offers detailed explanations of geospatial technologies and provides critical reviews and appraisals of their application in society within international and multi-disciplinary contexts as agents of change. The ability of geospatial data to transform knowledge in contemporary and future societies forms an important theme running throughout the entire volume. Contributors reflect on the changing role of geospatial technologies in society and highlight new applications that represent transformative directions in society and point towards new horizons. Furthermore, they encourage dialogue across disciplines to bring new theoretical perspectives on geospatial technologies, from neurology to heritage studies. The international contributions from leading scholars and influential practitioners that constitute the Handbook provide a wealth of critical examples of these technologies as agents of change in societies around the globe. The book will appeal to advanced undergraduates and practitioners interested or engaged in their application worldwide.

Download or read book Nanotechnology and Global Sustainability written by Donald Maclurcan and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2018-09-03 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rise of collaborative consumption, peer-to-peer systems, and not-for-profit social enterprise heralds the emergence of a new era of human collectivity. Increasingly, this consolidation stems from an understanding that big-banner issues—such as climate change—are not the root causes of our present global predicament. There is a growing and collective view that issues such as this are actually symptoms of a much more vicious, seemingly insurmountable condition: our addiction to economic, consumption, and population growth in a world of finite resources. Nanotechnology and Global Sustainability uses nanotechnology—the product of applied scientific knowledge to control and utilize matter at atomic and molecular scales—as a lens through which to explore the interrelationship between innovation, politics, economy, and sustainability. This groundbreaking book addresses how stakeholders can actively reshape agendas to create positive and sustainable futures through this latest controversial, cross-sectoral technology. It moves beyond issues of efficiency, productivity, and utility, exploring the insights of 22 contributors from around the world, whose work spans the disciplines of science and the humanities. Their combined knowledge, reinforced with various case studies, introduces an exciting prospect—how we can innovate without economic growth. This new volume in the Perspectives in Nanotechnology series is edited by Dr. Donald Maclurcan and Dr. Natalia Radywyl. Dr. Maclurcan is a social innovator and Honorary Research Fellow with the Institute for Nanoscale Technology at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. Dr. Radywyl is a social researcher and Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She is also an Adjunct Research Fellow in the Faculty of Life and Social Sciences at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne. This book is written for a wide audience and will be of particular interest to activists, scholars, policy makers, scientists, business professionals, and others who seek an understanding of how we might justly transition to sustainable societies.

Download or read book Innovation for Sustainable Development written by Jean-Yves Grosclaude and published by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). This book was released on 2014-02-20 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Innovation has become the new buzzword across the globe. International organisations, governments, corporates, academia and society see it as the answer to the major economic, social and environmental transformations challenging the models of the 20th century. Innovations are occurring worldwide and alternative solutions to the existing problems are emerging in all sectors: electric cars, organic farming, renewable energy and e-learning are good examples. These alternatives can be ascribed with qualities such as decentralized frugal, flexible, smart and democratic, virtues that are lacking in conventional models. They are attributed with the potential to meet the overall global challenges such as climate change and the growing inequalities between and within countries. What is the real potential of innovation? Does the rapid deployment of innovations lead towards a more sustainable and inclusive society? Can innovations and the emerging alternatives replace conventional models? Beyond technologies, what institutional innovations are required to support sustainable development? A Planet for Life 2014 aims to answer these questions and explore innovation in all its aspects, through a series of texts written by international experts. The objective of this book is to analyse experiences from across the world and the role of innovation in a variety of areas of development such as urbanization, agriculture and food, the mobility of people and freight, education and the provision of water and energy to all.

Download or read book The Case for Open Source Appropriate Technology written by Joshua M. Pearce and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much of the widespread poverty, environmental desecration, and waste of human life seen around the globe could be prevented by known (to humanity as a whole) technologies, many of which are simply not available to those that need it. This lack of access to critical information for sustainable development is directly responsible for a morally and ethically unacceptable level of human suffering and death. A solution to this general problem is the concept of open source appropriate technology or OSAT, which refers to technologies that provide for sustainable development while being designed in the same fashion as free and open-source software. OSAT is made up of technologies that are easily and economically utilized from readily available resources by local communities to meet their needs and must meet the boundary conditions set by environmental, cultural, economic, and educational resource constraints of the local community. This paper explores both the open source and appropriate technology aspects of OSAT to create a paradigm, in which anyone can both learn how to make and use needed technologies free of IP concerns. At the same time anyone can also add to the collective open source knowledge ecosystem or knowledge commons by contributing ideas, designs, observations, experimental data, deployment logs, etc. It is argued that if OSAT continues to grow and takes hold globally creating a vibrant virtual community to share technology plans and experiences, a new technological revolution, built on a dispersed network of innovators working together to create a just sustainable world is possible.

Download or read book Towards Engineering Free Libre Open Source Software FLOSS Ecosystems for Impact and Sustainability written by Brian Fitzgerald and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-07-05 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Free/libre open source software (FLOSS) ecosystems such as Linux have had a tremendous impact on computing and society and have captured the attention of businesses, researchers, and policy makers. Research on FLOSS has been ongoing for almost two decades. From an economic perspective, the most common topics involve motivation and organization. As commercial participation in FLOSS has become common, the question of how to combine FLOSS practice with commercial practice has been the subject of research, particularly with a view to understanding how to ensure sustainability of the ecosystem. This book is based on a Shonan meeting on FLOSS ecosystem sustainability held in June 2017. The meeting brought together a blend of established and young researchers who were actively studying the FLOSS phenomenon. These researchers were drawn from a variety of disciplines including software engineering, human computer interaction, information systems, computer-supported cooperative work, data mining, cognitive science, psychology, operations research, and management. Industry practitioners who were active in the FLOSS space also participated. This book presents the results of discussion on fundamental questions related to the impact and sustainability of FLOSS ecosystems, including: · How does an ecosystem form? How do different stakeholders work together to form a community that develops and maintains valuable and freely available software, and how does an ecosystem with millions of repositories and developers operate given the lack of centralized planning? · How does an ecosystem evolve in response to the environment as technology and needs evolve over time? · How do newcomers learn the protocols and practices of an ecosystem? How would they sustain the ecosystem? What is the relationship between people and ecosystem sustainability?

Download or read book Open Source Lab written by Joshua M. Pearce and published by Newnes. This book was released on 2013-10-04 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Open-Source Lab: How to Build Your Own Hardware and Reduce Scientific Research Costs details the development of the free and open-source hardware revolution. The combination of open-source 3D printing and microcontrollers running on free software enables scientists, engineers, and lab personnel in every discipline to develop powerful research tools at unprecedented low costs.After reading Open-Source Lab, you will be able to: - Lower equipment costs by making your own hardware - Build open-source hardware for scientific research - Actively participate in a community in which scientific results are more easily replicated and cited - Numerous examples of technologies and the open-source user and developer communities that support them - Instructions on how to take advantage of digital design sharing - Explanations of Arduinos and RepRaps for scientific use - A detailed guide to open-source hardware licenses and basic principles of intellectual property

Download or read book Non governmental organizations and the sustainability of small and medium sized enterprises in Peru written by Walter V. Castro Aponte and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-09-04 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a better understanding of the changing roles of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in promoting sustainability of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Peru. The book focuses on the domains of organic production, business social responsibility and sustainable production. The innovative study uses a combination of network and discourse analyses to identify the main patterns and shifts in the roles of NGOs in order to deal with sustainability and the market. Two major contemporary sociological theories - ecological modernization theory and network society theory - are applied to frame the analysis. The in-depth analysis of international networks of NGOs operating in Peru provide valuable inputs in terms of changes in network and discourse patterns, and consequently, changing roles for NGOs. Remarkably, social movement, liberal market and sustainability viewpoints are generating new networks and new discourses, with a prominent position of national and international NGOs vis-à-vis SMEs, and in absence of the national state. Next to the usual 'watchdog' roles, NGOs are developing roles of 'helper' in order to answer to the market needs of SMEs. The analyses challenges Castells scheme of space of flows versus space of place and suggests considering in ecological modernization theory both ecological rationality and social rationality in order to advance environmental governance of SMEs in developing countries, particularly in Latin America.

Download or read book Business Models and Strategies for Open Source Projects written by Monaco, Francisco José and published by IGI Global. This book was released on 2023-07-17 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its emergence in the mid-1980s through the protagonism of free software and open source movements, the concept of freely shareable technology has steadily established itself in the following decades to enter the 21st century as a leading industrial paradigm. From the original ambit of software technology, the principles of collaborative construction of publicly accessible knowledge grounding the open source paradigm have been extended to embrace any intellectual artifact made available under non-exclusive rights of utilization, development, and distribution. It is noteworthy, however, that whilst on one hand it is not difficult to enumerate advantages of the use of open source products by individuals and organizations—whether related to cost reduction, socio-technological inclusion, governance of technology development, security and privacy transparency, among others—on the other hand, it is not as immediate to identify their motivation to develop open source technology. While there may surely be initiatives driven by either ethical grounds, personal avocation, or public policies, those reasons alone do not explain the lasting success of many large community-driven projects, nor why large commercial enterprises massively invest in open source development. Business Models and Strategies for Open Source Projects investigates the rationales and the strategy underlying companies’ decisions to produce and release open source products as well as which business models have succeeded. Covering topics such as embedded systems, open source ecosystems, and software companies, this premier reference source is a valuable resource for entrepreneurs, business leaders and managers, students and educators of higher education, librarians, software developers, researchers, and academicians.

Download or read book Free and Open Source Software for Development written by Victor Van Reijswoud and published by Polimetrica s.a.s.. This book was released on 2008 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Open Source Agriculture written by Chris Giotitsas and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-11-14 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Palgrave Pivot employs the concept of open source agriculture as a new social movement, which not only advocates a specific agenda but also creates technological products under a unique technology development model. The book brings together social movement and technology theory to examine it through two in-depth case studies of open source agricultural communities. This allows for the tracing of values and interests coded within the technological artefacts the communities produce, as well as their development processes. Critical theory of technology is further applied to examine the broader political economy of the development model.

Download or read book Create Share and Save Money Using Open Source Projects written by Joshua M. Pearce and published by McGraw-Hill Education TAB. This book was released on 2020-10-30 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher's Note: Products purchased from Third Party sellers are not guaranteed by the publisher for quality, authenticity, or access to any online entitlements included with the product. Live a more sustainable and economical life using open-source technology Aimed at beginning hobbyists and makers, this engaging guide explains many ways to save money by making use of free, open-source technologies on everything from music, books, maps and videos to photographs, art, clothing, and cooking. The book shows the potential of at-home manufacturing, recycling projects—even how to score free big-ticket items, including housing and electricity. All the projects have big money saving in mind, but also big fun! Written by a leader in the field of open-source technology, Create, Share, and Save Money Using Open-Source Projects lays out the many ways in which a common person can employ these resources on a small scale to live a more economical and sustainable lifestyle. You will get DIY projects that demonstrate making and sharing woodworking, electronics, mapping, 3D printing and much more. • An easy to understand introduction to concepts of free and open-source sharing • Includes numerous examples of technologies and the open-source communities that support them • Puts makers and families in a position to save substantial amounts of money