Collection of my GIScience Work
At its core, open source lies on the foundation of being able to create, distribute, and apply new software and its tangible code for the general public (Rey, 2009). Honing into the concept of open source, while used interchangeably with free software by both scholars and practitioners, these movements are slightly distinguished by their language and philosophical principles. On the language front, the term free often connotated ideas of inferiority (esp. in the corporate world), which served as the basis for a call to action to shift to open source, a more market-friendly term. Looking to philosophical grounds, free software is grounded in morality, whereas is open source looks to the practical benefits of its license. Elaborating, free software emphasizes the availability of the source code for the user to actively use and innovate upon, spotlighting the general ‘freedoms’ of this software type outlined by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) (Rey, 2009). Lastly, using the common square-rectangle analogy, while free software can always be open-source, not all open source can be free software.
Furthering the narrative on open source, two references from Rey’s “Show me the code: spatial analysis and open source” that contributed to my understanding of open source were the bazaar model of development and the gift economy. Focusing on the developing environment rather than the availability of code, the bazaar model entails a more “evolutionary and distributed” (Rey, 2009) format—signifying the more collaborative and opportunistic realm for open source developers. Additionally, the gift economy was another critical ‘aha’ moment in defining open source. Whereas autonomy in traditional economics revolves around the idea of how much you own (i.e. the infamous quote “I own 51% of this company”), power in open source is derived from one’s contributions to and for the community. Although the ‘science’ portion incorporated still isn’t clear-cut to me, I believe the grounds for GIScience stems from its use for critical spatial analysis within academia and the frameworks for which it should be practiced: data availability within the public domain, open code software, etc (Singleton, 2019).
Looking at the benefits and risks of Open Source GIScience, one of the strongest benefits I believe comes from the accountability this discipline holds. While other more privatized practices can often hide behind the walls of information control, what’s done in the realm of Open Source GIScience is available to the public to view, critique, and even replicate. Hence, on the citizen’s end, this presents the opportunity to keep their governments in line by proof checking and commenting on their work, which idealistically would further trust between the government and its people. In academia, this transparency and replicability creates an interdisciplinary environment for Open Source GIScience, where the likelihood of collaboration across social science, STEM, and humanities is encouraged.
However, the setbacks with this progressive movement should also be noted. While information distributed via Open Source GIScience is readily public, the ability to comprehend and digest this information often requires a steep learning curve. Similar to creating this website from GitHub, there has to be a fundamental drive for knowledge in order to use the code/data that is given to us, thus I empathize with the challenges posed to the ‘everyday individual’ who wants to get involved in GIScience but doesn’t know where to start. Additionally, Open Source GIScience is constantly in motion, so universal adaptability can often pose a challenge. With source code constantly being modified and improved upon, there will often be a slight buffer between privatized sectors that do the innovating and those who will use these improved tools/methodologies.
At an institution like Middlebury, I do believe Open GIScience is well-suited for our undergraduate liberal arts education. We often throw this idea notion of Middlebury graduates becoming ‘citizens of the world,’ however, Open GIScience helps ground this buzzwordy cliche. Paralleling with the underlying goals of the college, Open GIScience emphasizes collaboration, solving real-world problems, and thinking outside the box (i.e. creating a tool never seen before on QGIS… ooooh, innovation). While there is this vulnerability associated with Open GIScience (most definitively in the fact we’ll be able to see everyone’s work via GitHub), this provides an opportunity for us to understand the bounds of what it means to work in such an ambiguous environment. Part of what makes Open GIScience successful I believe is the ability to have confidence in those who take part in this community. Hence, I am confident that my fellow peers and I will not only abide by the honor code, but will take on the challenges of communicating what we believe to be right and wrong within the world of Open GIScience, especially in the context of this course. Overall, I’m thoroughly excited to see how this semester unfolds, and how we as both individual and a cohort will incorporate Open GIScience into our community of geographers here at Middlebury.
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