So a bit of actual feedback (after giving it a bit -a bit- more thought).
On the good side first. I am one of those people willing or trying to do research from the outside, I’m not part of the academia and not planning to join it any time soon. So actually having an affiliation that doesn’t require me being a phD student or a professor or ‘formal’ researcher would be probably great. (Although even better would be to actually have the time/money to do proper research, and with a bunch of people).
Having said that, what I find problematic relates first to the need to sort of centralize Gosh in order to do what you propose, in a country, in a group of people. That means centralizing power in decision making and influence. Even more problematic to do so in a Global North country such as Germany. One of Gosh’s strengths is its decentralized nature, the fact that there isn’t a group of people commanding what the rest do or can do. And the second reason (I’m sure there are more) relates to focusing on doing ‘science as usual’. I mean, the Manifesto is clear in that the purpose is to do things differently. In that sense, we should look for visibility and reputation for the community and open science hardware in general (even if not done by community members) and not to try increase the reputation of individual academics/researchers: “We move science toward communal, accessible, and collaborative practices, and away from territorial, proprietary, institutional, and individualistic practices”. I mean, if we do good stuff, if we work hard and effectively, and partner with the right people/groups, we should (OSH) get more visibility.
And lastly (for now), I have the feeling this possibility was discussed and eventually dropped some time ago. I’m not sure if in GOSH 2017 in Santiago or last year in China. Maybe someone else remembers…
Thank you a lot for your feedback @paz . I think I see your point. I’m looking forward to hearing from others too. Sorry if this has already been discussed at GOSH17. I was not there and I did not hear about it at GOSH18 (which does not mean it wasn’t discussed ).
We actually did not think about it as a “center” but a node of the network. I would be also up for not doing this in Germany or the rest of global north, but we would offer to do it here and it is fairly easy too. But I don’t know how much effort it would be to found something similar in the global south. I just know (or think I know) that the German “Vereinswesen” (association/NGO system) is quite unique and it does not have to be centralized. The only thing it needs is one address in Germany which we could provide.
when you give an affiliation in an academic paper, does it need to be linked to a legal entity? or in other words, could we simply start using GOSH as an affilitation and point to the website or forum or roadmap?
From a few opinions around in the lab, the consensus seems to be that no one really cares if the affiliations are from registered institutions. The other suggestion was: forgiveness is sometimes better then permission…
I would say we just start using it… If of course members of the GOSH community are ok with this…
I have no idea what this would represent in terms of representation of the movement, and how people see this in the non-academic space…
I have been working with some of our partners here in Yogyakarta again, and we discussed a lot about a programme called “Arts Collaboratoty”, although originally funded through DOEN, a dutch foundation, the programme had a very unique and ethical standard to give away “power” to the recipients of the earlier rounds, all in the “global south”. it’s is meanwhile “them” who tailor and plan the future of it.
very interesting and experimental self-governance and mutual accountability models. i think much to learn from it also for GOSH’s future visions. http://www.artscollaboratory.org/meetings/
while they are quite far away from scientific hardware / research, they could be super valuable for future governance discussion and we could aim at inviting them as counsellors for future events.
I recently stumbled on the “zebras instead of unicorns” business funding model which might be a better fit for open source hardware (and software), see this thread. Looks interesting! Just wanted to share in case anyone’s interested. Love to know what people think…
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