Ang: [oats-sig] 'Open source' urged for TB drug design effort + Blissymbolics

Mats

offlist, as you may be aware, Makaton generate a very considerable  
part of their revenue from sales of symbols, as do Widget, PCS and  
others.
I believe this may represent the majority of their income.
It's deeply regrettable and I couldn't work for such a 'business' model.

if you haven't come across dojinshi a search on google should turn up  
and excellent article by Lawrence Lessig.

best wishes

Jonathan Chetwynd
Accessibility Consultant on Media Literacy and the Internet

On 27 Nov 2007, at 10:22, mats.lundalv at vgregion.se wrote:

Thanks Catherine, very interesting news!

This gives an additional perspective and argument for me to refer to  
in my and others current struggle to persuade the board of BCI  
(Blissymbolics Communication International) to adopt the open source  
philosophy for the future maintenance and dessimination of  
Blissymbolic Resources. This is not an altogether easy transition.  
There is a deeply rooted tradition of protectiveness of exclusive  
rights - combined with a non-profit charitable "good will" of  
providing the resource for AAC users. This combination unfortunately  
has caused, and continues to cause, a lot of unclarity, confusion,  
hazzle and frustration concerning how the resource can be provided  
effectively to those who need and want to use it.
(Quote from BCI's homepage - www.blissymbolics.org - : "Blissymbolics  
Communication International (BCI) is a non-profit, charitable  
organization that has the perpetual, worldwide, exclusive licence for  
the use and publication of Blissymbols for persons with  
communication, language, and learning difficulties. BCI provides  
leadership world-wide to the development of the system of  
Blissymbolics and to its use by persons with severe speech and  
physical impairments.")

To pesuade this community to open up and let go of these exclusive  
rights - apart from the right and duty to protect the "perpetual  
freedom" of Blissymbolics - is not all that easy. If this happened, a  
lot more positive energy could be mobilised and concentrated on the  
leadership aspect in the above quote - within the framework of an  
open community. I hope this will happen soon, as the great  
Blissymbolics resource is since long suffocating badly from over- 
protectiveness and closed community management.
Cheers,
Mats

-------------------------------------------------
FYI, got this through a French mailing list on open source but,  
ironically, the message is in English ;)

Catherine
--

 > 'Open source' urged for TB drug design effort
 > http://www.scidev.net/news/index.cfm? 
fuseaction=printarticle&itemid=4082&language=1
 >
 >
 > *An open source project could lead to more affordable drugs for the
 > world's poor T. V. Padma
 > 23 November 2007
 > Source: SciDev.Net
 >
 > [NEW DELHI] One of India's top genetics researchers has called for a
 > global, collaborative effort to design a new tuberculosis (TB) drug
 > using an 'open source' approach.
.................