[TOS] FLOSS Body of Knowledge -- an initiative of opensource.org

[tosmail20110729.neophyte_rep at ordinaryamerican.net]

On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 9:04 AM, Don Davis - dondavis at reglue.org wrote:
>
>> Uh, according to < http://www.opensource.org/node/600 >, those should
>> be FLOSSBOK and SWEBOK because they are Bodys Of Knowledge (BOK), not
>> mere BOOKs.
>
> Indeed, it is a BOK
> http://www.opensource.org/node/600
>
>
>> The IEEE is a well respected, vendor independent, national interest
>> independent, professional society.  Personally, I don't understand why
>> the FLOSS community would need a separate effort to promote the use of
>> FLOSS in SWE.
>
> Perhaps, because:
> (1)  much of the SWE community is not interested in/ dismissive of the
> societal impacts of software licensing

"much" becomes an unsupportable characterization only if FLOSS
proponents actively seek to educate the under-informed by
participating.

> (2) IEEE is known for very restrictive copyright practices

A practice that was established when it seemed to be the best approach
to controlling the publications intended to guide the standardization
of good engineering practice.

The IEEE claims a heritage that begins in 1884, <
https://origin.www.ieee.org/about/ieee_history.html#sect2 >.  I don't
know what to claim for the FLOSS community, perhaps the formation of
the Free Software Foundation, 4 October 1985?  So FLOSS is the
100-year junior that may now have sufficient maturity to begin the
slow process of replacing current practice with an evolutionary
improvement.  Again, direct participation is the path to that end.

> (3) uncritical use of software (so what if it's proprietary?) serves to
> marginalize. This is tied up with existing power structures perpetuating
> themselves. (See also Chopra & Dexter, 2007, 2008, 2011 & Kim, 2006)

Again, a situation that is amenable to change only through expended effort.

> (4) sometimes it is necessary to step outside of established
> disciplinary and paradigmatic boundaries (Kuhn, 1962; Moran, 2010)

And Larry Ellison (Oracle Corporation CEO) knows how to co-opt
outsiders by acquisition. Refer to OpenSolaris & Illumos and MySql for
examples.  Such co-opting is only successfully defended if the current
paradigm is used against itself by active participants in the
community.

> -------
> Chopra, S., & Dexter, S. (2007). Free software and the political
> philosophy of the cyborg world. SIGCAS Computers and Society, 37(2), 41-52.
>
> Chopra, S. & Dexter, S. (2008). Decoding liberation: The promise of free
> and open source software. New York: Routledge.
>
> Chopra, S., & Dexter, S. (2011). Free software and the economics of
> information justice. Ethics and Information Technology, 13(3), 173-184.
>
> Kim, S. (2006). Capitorgs and free/libre and open source software:
> Toward critical technological literacy and free/libre and open source
> society. Educational Insights, 10(2).
>
> Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago:
> University of Chicago Press.
>
> Moran, J. (2010). Interdisciplinarity. New York: Routledge.
>

Thank you for the references.

>> Instead, the FLOSS community should be participating in
>> the review of SWEBOK V3,
>
> Certainly. One does not necessarily negate the other.

I'm sorry, but it seems to me consuming resources to work on FLOSSBOK
_does_ reduce the resources to evolve SWEBOK appropriately.  I can
conceive of a coordinated effort in the FLOSS community to make sure
SWEBOK is evolved well, but the effort should be expended on moving
the accepted standard, not creating a separate, unusable document.

The reason proprietary interests expend their resources molding IEEE
standards is standards are strategic.  One wins the mind share battle
even before the Request For Information is written.

>
> Instead, the FLOSS community should be participating in
>> the review of SWEBOK V3, <
>> http://computer.centraldesktop.com/swebokv3review/ >.  When the IEEE
>> issues a Call for Reviewers, it is not limited to corporations with a
>> proprietary interest in the subject nor their employees, but a true
>> request for people who have any experience in the subject of the
>> publication to help make it a standard resource.