Mastodawn

@LibreTexts when you say "#open" what do you mean? Because you keep using that word...

I'd appreciate seeing your definition.

Jun 22, 2023

@LibreTexts hmm - no response. Am I surprised?

LibreTexts Jun 23, 2023

@lightweight thanks for asking. We use #open to primarily mean the 5R's codified via #CreativeCommons and #GNU licensing. We do have some content that doesn't follow this (e.g. content w/ an ND clause); in these cases #open
means #OpenAccess. Everything created on the #LibreTexts site is #OER open.

For code, we refer primarily to GNU and MIT licensed open-source content.

We hope this helps answer your question. Let us know if we can clarify anything else related to our greater #LibreVerse.

Jun 23, 2023

@LibreTexts the words #open and #libre are used in the software context to refer to code that is available under an OSI approved open source license, & libre more specifically refers to a #Copyleft (shared-alike) license. Is any of your software open source or Copyleft licensed? What about your flagship software?

I looked on your website and couldn't find any evidence of any open source code to download. Everything I found appeared to be proprietary, i.e. not at all '#open'.

Also, I note that your default content license is CC-BY-SA-NC. Given the ambiguity around what is deemed 'commercial' (if I teach at an educational institution that charges students tuition, is my use 'commercial'?), the NC makes it really not very #open at all - it's certainly not 'free cultural works-approved', right? The real 'open' content license choice would certainly be CC-BY-SA, wouldn't it?

@lightweight our default license is CC BY-SA-NC, but a lot of our content is differently licensed as going through our pages will indicate. We favor a more open license, but our end goal is to help students, and if that means using NC licensed content if there isn't comparable non-NC content available then we will do so.

@LibreTexts As one involved in entirely #Libre (aka #FOSS) educational software & #OER your pervasive use of NC puts me off - our organisation only adopts #OER with a 'free cultural works-approved' license (NC is incompatible)... I wonder what your organisation's trying to achieve with that restriction? That license practice, combined with your proprietary software dependence, makes me question how you can say you're truly a #libre & #open org or promoting the #5Rs.

@lightweight the scale at which we operate for a non-profit is unique in the #OER world. We can all agree that free and freely accessible education is the goal and there is no one-way to get there. It's not perfect, but we are trying!

@LibreTexts it's great you're trying, but you're leaving, quite unapologetically, closed/not-libre elements in your core offering. Realise that your claim of needing proprietary software to scale is unconvincing. Many fully libre solutions scale far beyond your requirements today. As you explain, it seems you're neither really #open nor #libre and your use of those words dilutes their meanings, which are all about principle. That, unfortunately, is #openwashing/#librewashing.

@LibreTexts you could remedy that situation by either changing your brand & your marketing messaging to remove 'libre' & 'open', or you could change your policies to ensure your #OER is available under free cultural works-approved licenses and your *entire* software stack is openly licensed libre software. Short of that, I'll continue to voice my misgivings.

@lightweight we understand the software community has specific understandings of the terms #open and libre but our focus is more geared toward developing and distributing #OER than developing and distributing the tech around it. That said, all our tech, with the exception of the libraries which are proprietary by NICE CXOne, is open source and can be download via github: https://github.com/LibreTexts

LibreTexts

LibreTexts has 53 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub.

GitHub

@LibreTexts I couldn't find any reference to your open source code on your website... did I miss it? Also, why (especially with your chosen brand) wouldn't you make *all* your software open source? Unless someone can replicate your entire stack independently, it might as well *all* be proprietary. Creating #OER that requires your proprietary software seems very much against the spirit of the #open & #libre you trumpet everywhere. From my perspective, it seems your organisation is #openwashing.

@lightweight we help millions of students worldwide access openly licensed educational materials & over 10k authors have used our platforms to create #open books, courses, assessments, or interactives. We allow our authors the freedom to select the license that makes sense for them, including CC BY-NC. We will never force a specific license or limit the CC licenses available to authors.

@lightweight the software we build in-house is released open-source. The proprietary software that hosts our #OER Book Library has enabled us to scale to 50M pageviews per month without having to raise our partner fee in 10 years. The contents in our Book Library are exportable as PDF and ePUB.

It might be time for a broad (and thoughtful) conversation on the limits of openness, in the #OpenEcosystem? How do #OpenGovernment and #OpenData work within the #FreeSoftware framework? Do #OERs run the risk of promoting #fauxpen and #OpenWashing?

@lightweight @LibreTexts

@enkerli As you can imagine, I'd certainly be keen to have that broader discussion.

@enkerli the almost compete erosion of value in the term "open source" (to mean 'weak open source licenses but, unlike its original meaning, *not* including #Copyleft or '#libre' licenses) thanks to bad corporate actors has forced the #FreeSoftware community to reinforce its long-time use of the term #libre to refer to share-alike #open licensing. #LibreWashing is an emerging insidious problem.

@LibreTexts

@lightweight It might be useful to focus on the phenomena themselves. Yes, including #LibreWashing, #Fauxpen, as well as the whole distinction between software freedom and open source development. There are diverse actors taking different postures which may or may not jibe with our values. Dispassionately, we can still describe the “Ecosystem of Open” with diverse initiatives taking root despite counteracting forces.

In other words, #HowMightWe design this ecosystem for the common good?

@enkerli yep. It's worth thinking it through. I've been thinking about this stuff for a couple decades. This might be useful: https://davelane.nz/nethui-insight-open-about-intent

NetHui Insight: Open is about Intent

At the recent NetHui conference in Auckland last week (8-10 July 2015), in a session titled "Why Not Open?" that I helped run with Rachel Prosser (DIA) and Nigel Robertson (Waikato University), I made

Dave Lane

@lightweight Ditto.

What feels different, these days, is the power of #EcosystemThinking. While #OpenEducation and #OpenGovernment and #OpenData were largely inspired by #FreeSoftware, there’s a sense in which the puzzle pieces are finally realigning.

@lightweight Maybe we should plan something small in a few weeks? Bringing diverse actors together for a thoughtful chat, either realtime (with timezone challenges) or asynchronously through an appropriate platform? I’m thinking of a number of people to invite, who are willing to engage in those issues at a “co-design” level. Establishing common ground?

@enkerli I'm sure we'd be interested, and we could provide a range of uncompromised platforms for co-design. We can invite people to our Matrix instance (persistent chat), BigBlueButton (video conference), Discourse (discoverable discussion), NextCloud + OnlyOffice for collaborative document writing, etc. All are, of course, #LibreSoftware.

@lightweight Yep! Apart from OnlyOffice (was mostly thinking about Collabora), they’re all part of the documentation I’m building for my #KnowledgeTransfer, at my current dayjob.
(Blindside Networks' BBB got started at Carleton’s Technology Innovation Management Program, where research on Open/Libre/Free models is core. @openedtech now uses it for its meetings and leverages Matrix for chat.)

@enkerli Nice! For what it's worth, we've decided that OnlyOffice is well ahead of Collabora at this point, but we've got both, so we can adapt quickly if that changes 😀 Cool re BBB - it's great, eh. And re Matrix, that means we can all talk to one another without having to leave the familiar comfort of our chosen Matrix instances 😎 Federation is far more advanced and civilised than the centralised proprietary options. @openedtech

@lightweight @openedtech Good to know about OnlyOffice (our small association for Free Software in Higher Ed will be interested).
And I’ll soon be free to explore more options.

As for federation, my personal reactions tend to be very positive. Yet it’s clear that a lot of it depends on usage patterns and community relations (not to mention “governance models”). My guess is that @evan would agree.

@enkerli
Happy to provide access to one of our instances for you to try and compare. And I agree that (decentralised) federation, though technically more complex, is ab inherently better approach than (centralised) stand-alone, especially from a resilience and sovereignty perspective.

@enkerli If it's of any interest, I recently posted this howto: https://tech.oeru.org/install-nextcloud-hub-and-onlyoffice-ubuntu-2204-docker-compose
@openedtech

Install NextCloud Hub and OnlyOffice on Ubuntu 22.04 with Docker Compose | OERu Technology Blog

This is another update of my previous posts (installing NextCloud with Collabora Office Online on Ubuntu 16.04 and then NextCloud with OnlyOffice on Ubuntu 18.04). I'm updating it thanks to my colleague in edtech, Stephen Downes' heroic videos showing how he went through this process using my 18.04 instructions on 22.04, running into a few minor issues... this update seeks to remedy the problems he encountered with the older tutorial.

Marcus Green Jun 26, 2023

@lightweight @LibreTexts
What sort of code would you expect to download?

@marcusgreen from an organisation with #libre in its name, I'd expect to be able to download *all* of it under a 'share alike' license (i.e. #Copyleft), and explicitly be able to replicate and use their entire software stack if I chose to do so. Otherwise it's not libre. @LibreTexts

Marcus Green Jun 27, 2023

@lightweight @LibreTexts
Which specific license would you expect the software to be under?

Marcus Green Jun 27, 2023

@lightweight
What specific software, the web server and database? Does viewing the content they provide require software that does meet your criteriia for being free/libre.
Do you have an example of something you would expect to receive the source under such a license?

Jun 27, 2023

@marcusgreen it's not about specific titles. It's about principles. It's about an organisation that calls itself "#Libre" in its very brand. To my mind, that places the onus on the organisation to ensure that *all* software it creates or depends on should be licensed with a libre license - at minimum open source, but ideally #Copyleft. Do you work for @LibreTexts?

Marcus Green Jun 27, 2023

@lightweight
No, I know very little about LibreTexts