Definitions of Openness
OPENNESS
I have been looking into different existing definitions of openness, and have yet to stumble upon one that sufficiently and yet thoroughly expresses what the emerging paradigm of Openness is.
From the 3 definitions underneath I have highlighted the elements that touches upon such a description.
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- without obstructions to passage or view; “the openness of the prairies”
- characterized by an attitude of ready accessibility (especially about one’s actions or purposes); without concealment; not secretive
- receptiveness: willingness or readiness to receive (especially impressions or ideas); “he was testing the government’s receptiveness to reform”; “this receptiveness is the key feature in oestral behavior, enabling natural mating to occur”; “their receptivity to the proposal”
Source: Princeton’s Wordnet
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- (Social) accommodating attitude or opinion, as in receptivity to new ideas, behaviors, cultures, peoples, environments, experiences, etc., different from the familiar, conventional, traditional, or one’s own.
- The degree to which a person, group, organization, institution, or society exhibits this liberal attitude or opinion.
- (Computing) degree of accessibility to view, use, and modify computer code in a shared environment with legal rights generally held in common and preventing proprietary restrictions on the right of others to continue viewing, using, modifying and sharing that code.
- (Systems) the degree to which a system operates with distinct boundaries across which exchange occurs capable of inducing change in the system while maintaining the boundaries themselves.
Source: Wiktionary
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- Openness is a philosophy that is being used as the basis of how various groups and organizations operate. It is a relatively new term to describe this general way of doing things.
It is typified by communal management, and open access to the information or material resources needed for projects; openness to contributions from a diverse range of users/producers/contributors, flat hierarchies, and a fluid organisational structure.
Communal management is usually done with decisions being made by some form of consensus decision-making or voting.
It is now being put forward to facilitate the growth of the open source and free software programming communities. As well as others, particularly activist groups.
Source: Wikipedia
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So, the main ingredients are:
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the willingness to share, transparency and accessibility (ready accessibility, without concealment, open access), and equally the willingness to receive and accept input from others (willingness or readiness to receive, openness to contributions from a diverse range of users/producers/contributors).
Giving and getting.
The definition from Wiktionary regarding computing is also strong when exchanging the word “computer code” for “creative work” - so it turns into:
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“Openness is the degree of accessibility to view, use, and modify creative works in a shared environment with legal rights generally held in common and preventing proprietary restrictions on the right of others to continue viewing, using, modifying and sharing that work.”
Although it would be beneficial to open the legal aspect to encompass a more open copyright licensing system such as Creative Commons.