Hi Simon,
Thank you very much for sharing your early-stage research with the group. I
recognize that gesture requires a degree of vulnerability that can feel
difficult in the context of academic writing.
I note your definition of "open source resources": "digital resources made
publicly available alongside their source files." I believe you've hit on a
necessary component of a potential definition here, but I don't believe that
this definition alone is sufficient for account for the phenomenon. It lacks
the emphasis on _modifiability_ that makes the concept of "open" so powerful
in the field of open source software.
The Open Source Definition[^1] is clear that something "open source" must
"allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed
under the same terms as the license of the original software." Without that
freedom to modify and re-design, an artifact (an open educational resource, an
open dataset, an open image, etc.) cannot be said to be "open" in the same way
open source software is open. And without express permission from a creator
(in the form of an open source license), modifiability is not possible "by
default"
What you are describing here is more akin to the term "source available,"
which applies to a class of what I will call "semi-open" resources, the
"source" for which is available for inspection but is not expressly
modifiable. Open source advocates use the term "source available" to
differentiate between software that exhibits only this one tenet of the open
source definition (transparency of source code) but not all of them—and all of
them are required for something to qualify as "open source."
So as you continue to iterate on your definition, I would encourage you to
make an important choice: Either rename the phenomenon you are describing (so
you are no longer using "open source" as a designation) or refine your
definition (so you can account for modifiability).
I hope these comments are helpful to your research efforts.
Sincerely,
Bryan
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[^1]: https://opensource.org/osd
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