In this document I write down short notes on what I have learned.

2011-09-11: Wikipedia article on Open Source:

• Cooking recipes have been shared since the beginning of human culture.
• Cross-licensing agreement among all US auto manufacturers.
• Firefox, Linux, Wikipedia ...
• No admin costs and access costs --> leads to more creation.
• Counterargument: no monetary gain from making new goods --> less goods.
  • 
    But: cost reduction for all concerned is perhaps an even better monetary incentive than is a price increase.
  • Money can be made indirectly (Linus Torvalds is not poor, for example :-).
• The article has lots of examples but not (very much) scientific evidence for open source / open content.
  • 
    Can there be scientific evidence? Is the question more political than scientific?

End-of-September:

• I have introduced the OCW to the operative management of our college. Everyone did like the concept. Only concern raised was not about the OCW but for budgeting the costs ("how do we share the costs between different departments")
• I had a personal discussion with one manager, he was very enthusiastic.
• We had a small national seminar on Blended Learning, and I was the chairman of the OCW workshop. Everyone gave positive feedback - but I have to keep in mind that probably only the people who like OCW concept will take part into the workshop.