A node is a place where part of the connections of a network, itself composed of nodes, converge, and interrelate in a centralised, decentralised or distributed manner. Here at Goteo, part of our goal is to decentralise, as much as possible, both the management and the administration of the crowdfunding model we promote, and we are, therefore, preparing the scalability of the platform so that it can operate autonomously, run by groups of local, or special interest. More information.
Open data is a philosophy and a practice which strives to make certain data freely available to the world, with no copyright, patent, or other restrictions.
It has a similar ethics to open movements and communities such as open source and open access.
Inasmuch as data (especially public data) is published with quality and in machine-readable formats, this eases the task of third parties to transform them by adding value, in the form of applications (web, mobile), summaries or reports. More information in Wikipedia.
Open hardware is hardware whose design is publicly available. Anyone can study, modify, distribute, fabricate it or sell designs or more hardware based on the original.
Its source code is available, and its components, tools and documentation are, ideally, open, and its processes standardised. This is a definition based on the one provided by the Open Hardware Summit. More information in Wikipedia.
At Goteo, by open source we don't mean just software, but, in general, the open access to, reproduction and distribution of source code (information and/or knowledge that is likely to be digitised, either as a pattern, a design, a methodology, programming, an educational manual, etc.) of any product, service, or activity.
Open source (as opposed to closed models) allows replicating, reusing, recontextualising, and remixing, in different communities connected in a network; it allows viral action and the production of derivatives for their adaptation and exponential improvement (thanks to distributed collaboration); it is an example and a facilitator of accessibility and collaboration on a common project. More information in Wikipedia.
Peer-to-peer (P2P) file exchange networks go far beyond the nowadays predominant use of this technology in music and film exchange. Their essence is premised on shared power and distributed access to resources, a participatory design of social processes in which no-one is excluded. Thus, all indications point to a not too distant future when exporting the P2P model to non-digital spaces could become the central logic of our society.
While we remain in an immaterial, cultural, knowledge realm, in which anything can be copied at no cost, anybody in any part of the world can voluntarily aggregate their work since, in essence, current technology reduces coordination, transaction and communication overheads.
P2P is not just a descriptive concept. It allows the analysis of new forms of organisation, and imagining the effects of their possible generalised or normative use. As the world changes, as my life changes, my ethics change when I start demanding a peer relationship in all my actions. This is when P2P acquires a true potential for change. More information in Wikipedia.
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