Why Open Source should be more like Fairtrade.
I like Open Source Software. 😀
I like it because it stands for something that connects with me as a philosopher and an educator.
But not everyone cares – or even knows about – Open Source Software. There’s a reason for that. It’s fairly well exemplified through some screenshots.
Here’s a Google image search for ‘fairtade’:
…and now one for ‘Open Source Software’:
Confused yet?
The solution is simple: decide on a frickin’ logo that means something and stick to it! :-p
That’s the thing about open source in its nature it is very fragmented.
I tried google image searching for “Creative Commons” and that is pretty similar to fair trade.
I guess you can say that the penguin is pretty well known as a logo and that is a product of the work of open source.
If you search for ‘open source logo’ you will there is one that sticks out more than the others. However, as you say, the open source community should agree to one logo only and insist everyone uses it.
On a slightly different note, when you look at the fairtrade logo do you see the person waving or just the ‘ying-yang’ style logo. In a class of 30 children, nearly all will recognise the logo, but only around half will have seen the person before.
Definitely see the person but know where you’re coming from with the
yin-yang! 🙂
Doug, someone came up with your eleven year old “Why Open Source should be more like Fairtrade” in their search for connections to help launch our Open Source Fair Trade Initiative https://fairtrade.osmio.org/ .
If you have a moment I’d love to hear your thoughts about the Initiative.
All the best,
Wes
Looks promising! Seems like quite a difficult thing to grok, though, for most people?