Category: 4. Society-at-large

  • A systematic analysis of problems in open collaborative data engineering [TSC Journal]

    A systematic analysis of problems in open collaborative data engineering [TSC Journal]

    Abstract Collaborative workflows are common in open-source software development. They reduce individual costs and improve the quality of work results. Open data shares many characteristics with open-source software as it can be used, modified, and redistributed by anyone, for free. However, in contrast to open-source software engineering, collaborative data engineering on open data lacks a…

  • Open Source Explained lecture in TUM lecture series on digital sustainability

    Open Source Explained lecture in TUM lecture series on digital sustainability

    Today I had the pleasure of giving a talk about open source in the TUM lecture series on digital sustainability, organized by Alexander Pretschner of TU Munich, bidt, and TU Wien. The talk was in German and streamed, but not recorded. Below please find my slides.

  • The Pegel Alarm open data challenge (a thread)

    The Pegel Alarm open data challenge (a thread)

    The struggles of @LilithWittmann to make the Handelsregister of Germany freely available and easily accessible reminded me of our own struggles with different German state-level organizations, trying to get access to open data for rivers and water ways in 2014. 1/ We had developed an open-source app called PegelAlarm @EichhornPhilipp (now defunct) which lets users…

  • Open source and the hyphen

    Open source and the hyphen

    You may have seen the repeated fights over whether open-source software should be spelled with a hyphen or not. It just flared up on Wikipedia, again. The rules are clear, in my opinion. Still, the situation is a misery. First things first: If “open source” is used as an adjective (attribute) in front of a…

  • Open source is not the infrastructure of modern society…

    Open source is not the infrastructure of modern society…

    Cloud services are the actual infrastructure. Open source is the blueprints and building materials of our digital infrastructure. Infrastructure should be built from open source, but it is important to understand the difference between software and a service, because there is a person in the middle, the one operating the service. There will be no…

  • A simple fun example of how a computer reads intent wrong

    A simple fun example of how a computer reads intent wrong

    I read an article about India and wanted to know how much money “2 lakh” is in Euro. The search engine responded as follows: