"The global epoch we have now entered will embrace many forms of wisdom and dialogue, or it will not be. While humans must continue to build on previous accomplishments, this new, global age must also rise to the challenge of creating better and more effective forms of civic and social engagement to solve problems on a world scale. It must create synergies among the living [forms of] knowledge of people from all parts of the world."
"In spite of current ads and slogans, the world doesn't change one person at a time. It changes as networks of relationships form among people who discover they share a common cause and vision of what's possible."
"This is not just a matter of giving a laptop to each child, as if bestowing on them some magical charm. The magic lies within--within each child, within each scientist, scholar or just-plain-citizen-in-the-making. This initiative is meant to bring it forth into the light of day."
Kofi Annan, Former UN Secretary General
If the overwhelming response we received to this month's call for submissions is any indication, those engaged in open source are also passionate about social innovation. We could have easily published a 100 page issue, but opted instead to save some submissions for upcoming issues as they are also suited to the themes of Building Community and Enabling Innovation.
Social Innovation is the theme of the September issue of the Open Source Business Resource. This issue captures important aspects of how open source assets, processes, and values may be used to create social and environmental value. Some of these aspects are new and still blurry, others are clear and familiar. The publication of this issue signals a strong interest in the use of open source to support non-profit and charitable initiatives. Technology company managers, entrepreneurs, academics, contributors to open source projects, and staff of non profit organizations and foundations are encouraged to continue to use open source to enable social innovation.
In this issue, authors from very diverse backgrounds have contributed insightful articles that examine: i) global projects that use open source to benefit society; ii) open source-like approaches to organizing the collaborative efforts that lead to social innovation; iii) challenges and elements of social innovation; and iv) ways to align university capacity with the social innovation agenda.
"Open source is not exempt from the laws of gravity or economics."
"As the open source vision and culture continue to mature, librarians would be remiss not to find our profession playing a major role in that culture. For all we have done so far, our online systems are not good enough yet. We can do better."
"The principles and practices of open source software are very similar to the principles and practices of modern librarianship. Both value free and equal access to data, information, and knowledge. Both value the peer review process. Both advocate open standards. Both strive to promote human understand and to make our lives better. Both make efforts to improve society as a whole assuming the sum is greater than the parts."
"...while HPC has been primarily limited to large enterprises, R&D firms, and academic institutions in the past, there is now also a broad swath of mid-market companies adopting HPC due to the availability of affordable and open solutions, supplanting the costly and proprietary solutions of the past. All of these factors are contributing to a logical progression: HPC is maturing from high performance to high productivity."