Free and Open Source Software in Municipal Procurement:The Challenges and Benefits of Cooperation

The use of free and open source software by municipal governments is the exception rather than the rule. This is due to a variety of factors, including a failure of many municipal procurement policies to take into account the benefits of free software, free software vendors second-to-market status, and a lack of established free and open source software vendors in niche markets. With feasible policy shifts to improve city operations, including building upon open standards and engaging with free software communities, municipalities may be able to better leverage free and open source software to realize fully the advantages that stem from open software development

dMODELS. A free software package to model volcanic deformation

Shallow magma accumulation in the crust often results in slight movements of the ground surface that can be measured using standard land-surveying techniques or satellite geodesy. Volcano geodesy uses measurements of crustal deformation to investigate volcano unrest and to search for magma reservoirs beneath active volcanic areas. A key assumption behind geodetic monitoring is that ground deformation of the Earth’s surface reflects tectonic and volcanic processes at depth (e.g., fault slip and/or mass transport) transmitted to the surface through the mechanical properties of the crust. Measurements and modeling of ground deformation are an indispensable component for any volcano monitoring strategy. The critical questions that emerge when monitoring volcanoes are how to (a) constrain the source of unrest, (b) improve the assessment of hazards associated with the unrest and (c) refine our ability to forecast volcanic activity. A number of analytical and numerical mathematical models are available in the literature that can be used to fit ground deformation to infer source location, geometry, depth and volume change. Analytical models offer a closed-form description of the volcanic source. This allows us, in principle, to readily infer the relative importance of any of the source parameters. The careful use of analytical models, together with high quality data sets can provide valuable insights into the nature of the deformation source (e.g., Battaglia and Hill, 2009). The simplifications that make analytical models tractable, however, may result in misleading interpretations. Sources are approximated by pressurized cavities in homogenous, elastic half-spaces filled with fluids. Although actual magmatic sources are certainly more complex, this approach can mimic the stress or potential field of the magma or other fluid sources beneath a volcano. The use of numerical models (e.g., finite element models) allows for evaluation of more realistic source characteristics and crustal properties (e.g., vertical and lateral mechanical discontinuities, complex source geometries, topography) but may require expensive proprietary software and powerful computers

Free Software’s Market-Oriented Aspects:The Example of Free Software Service Companies in France

Considering the french case of Free Software Service Companies (FSSCs), this paper analyses Free software’s market-oriented aspects. We try to answer a fundamental question for free software: is the software industry have room for an alternative economic model based on the communities’ ethic? Analysing FSSCs’ competition with traditionnal IT Service Companies (ITSCs) and regarding the integration of free software in the ITSCs’ product offer, we show how the software sector’s strutures could explain both FSSCs and ITSCs recent changes.Free software, Organisational production, Software industry

Free Technology Academy : a Joint Venture of Free Software and OER

The decision to publish educational materials openly and under free licenses brings up the challenge of doing it in a sustainable way. Some lessons can be learned from the business models for production, maintenance and distribution of Free and Open Source Software. The Free Technology Academy (FTA) has taken on these challenges and has implemented some of these models. We briefly review the FTA educational programme, methodologies and organisation, and see to which extent these models are proving successful in the case of the FTA

Recurrence Plots in Nonlinear Time Series Analysis: Free Software

Recurrence plots are graphical devices specially suited to detect hidden dynamical patterns and nonlinearities in data. However, there are few programs available to apply such a mehodology. This paper reviews one of the best free programs to apply nonlinear time series analysis: Visual Recurrence Analysis (VRA). This program is targeted to recurrence analysis and the so-called Recurrence Quantitative Analysis (RQA, the quantitative counterpart of recurrence plots), although it includes many procedures in a friendly visual environment. Comparisons with alternative programs are performed.

Against the “networked information economy”: rethinking decentralization, community, and free software development

No description supplie

FullSWOF: A free software package for the simulation of shallow water flows

Numerical simulations of flows are required for numerous applications, and are usually carried out using shallow water equations. We describe the FullSWOF software which is based on up-to-date finite volume methods and well-balanced schemes to solve this kind of equations. It consists of a set of open source C++ codes, freely available to the community, easy to use, and open for further development. Several features make FullSWOF particularly suitable for applications in hydrology: small water heights and wet-dry transitions are robustly handled, rainfall and infiltration are incorporated, and data from grid-based digital topographies can be used directly. A detailed mathematical description is given here, and the capabilities of FullSWOF are illustrated based on analytic solutions and datasets of real cases. The codes, available in 1D and 2D versions, have been validated on a large set of benchmark cases, which are available together with the download information and documentation at http://www.univ-orleans.fr/mapmo/soft/FullSWOF/.Comment: 38 page

Spreading huge free software without internet connection, via self-replicating USB keys

We describe and discuss an affordable way to spread huge software without relying on internet connection, via the use of self-replicating live USB keys.Comment: 5 pages, accepted to Extremecom 201

The Paradoxes of Free Software

This paper describes the legal structure of open source software and analyzes the likely issues to arise. A combination of copyright law and trademark law serves to permit the free distribution of open source software. The software is kept under copyright, but freely licensed under one of various open source licenses. The legal structure of open source is an elegant and robust use of intellectual property law that turns the customary use of intellectual property on its head, by using intellectual property laws, which normally are used to guard exclusive rights, to safeguard free access to and use of software. The paper further discusses how open source challenges economic and philosophical theories of intellectual property. Ironically, the open source movement, with its early roots in a decidedly socialist view of software, appears to vindicate a rather free-market view of intellectual property--that market mechanisms are more efficient in overcoming market failure than corrective legal measures. Philosophically, open sources may fit best with a natural rights/personality theory, especially where open source authors frequently give away all rights except their rights to attribution and to prevent distortion. The paper further explores how open source may affect patent litigation, (especially with respect to the profound prior art problems in software patents) and other aspects of regulation of software (ranging from fair use in copyright to enforcement of licensing terms to restrictions on use of certain algorithms, like encryption). The openness of the software can cut both ways with respect to all those subjects