Is « open source » more about open source software or open source resources ? It's unclear, and this distinction may change deeply the meaning and the scope of « open source ».

« Open Source Undefined: Overview of the Digital Bazaar » is a project to build a knowledge base to try to consider this kind of unanswered questions: open-source-undefined.org

Today, open source starts to be everywhere with digital technologies, but we don't know what it means precisely. Software or not only ? Could it reject collaboration ? Does it include resources (or software) with usage restrictions ?

The meaning of « open source » vary and is subjective, between popular and conventional usage, between the different visions that run through the phenomenon and its angles still little considered.

Because this idea of « open source » is being democratized, the confusion surrounding open source meaning too.

Open source become hard to explain, you may have experienced it yourself. Open source is then introduced in an incomplete or confusing way because our global understanding of open source is incomplete and confusing.

The goal of open-source-undefined.org is to produce a knowledge base, a tool to be able to explain and understand « open source » more broadly for people who need it. For computer scientists and students, for trainer or researchers to manage their digital resources, for various actors who may need to care about sources of their digital resources and try to benefit of these openness practices.

Built in relation with the educational work on open models (open science, open education, open software, open hardware...) to both try to clarify open source to be able to explain « open source » and to raise awareness on challenges surrounding digital sources outside of software.

To help this notion transcend the world of software, making it an entry point to open models and their resources.

A knowledge base to fuel a debate to shape the meaning of open source and to provide an understanding of this vague idea. A first ongoing work is around the open source history: https://open-source-undefined.org/content/history.html

What is open source ? It seems important to ask the question to realize that we don't have the answer.

Open source is being (re)defined. And this could raise issues as profound as how to conduct science.

Image: Ahmed Zayan, Unsplash