The Dawn of OSS

I’m posting an image of the sun rising over Karpathos and thinking that this is an apt reference to the rise of Zakros OSS. Kudos to Randall, Nick, and Jack for moving OSS forward. Now I guess it’s time for the rest of us to test and chime in. I like the idea of employing the design thinking strategy of I Like / I Wish / What If to comment on OSS development and use. I make my students use it, so it’s good to try it out myself too!

Here are some thoughts. I know we’re just entering Phase 2 of the plan so some of these things will come later but wanted to get them down now!

I Like
Creating my first page was relatively easy. I liked being able to use my own photograph, publish from my personal site, and see the page appear within the Zakros cohort. This experience suggested a promising space where individual voices/posts can remain distinct while contributing to a shared body of work.

I Wish
I could reply directly to other people’s pages and receive a notification when someone publishes or responds. Right now, I understand how to post, but I am less certain how the actual conversation begins. Maybe this isn’t developed yet, but where do we question, respond, connect ideas, and build upon one another’s work?

I am still learning the vocabulary and structure as well. What makes something a cohort category rather than a personal category? Per the Canonical document, cohort categories are approved. Who actually approves a cohort category? I created Museum Edition as a Zakros cohort category, but perhaps it belongs on my personal site unless it becomes part of a shared Zakros workflow. It seems that the categories right now are more about OSS functionality, but not sure.

I also had questions about tags. Can authors add tags, and how? Will personal and cohort tags be searchable together? (I think this actually comes in Phase 3 but wanted to note it.)

What If
Not sure I have a big “What If” idea yet, but my question is how will it be clear to a new user how to go from idea to collaboration? Also, I’m wondering if every new cohort user will need to know how OSS, Notion, GitHub, and Zakros website relate to each other – or is that just for the Zakros team?

Conclusion
Excited about The Dawning of the Age of OSS! (with apologies to the composers of “Aquarius” from the musical “Hair”)