PECE has incorporated developers from all around the Open Source world to ensure that PECE does Free and Open Source right: having code licensed properly is a good start but insufficient, a community around the software and a proper spirit of openness is what is needed. A fundamental goal of PECE is to bring the Open Source and humanities communities together on equal footing and mutual respect for differences. In that regard, we hope PECE is as interesting and successful as an Open Source project in its own right as it is a platform for social scientists. We are committed to all contributions, large and small. PECE works best as an experimental space for technical and non-technical people alike. As our technical and non-technical communities grow, we envision the collaboration between the two leading to greater insights from all. PECE is dedicated to the long-term.
PECE relies upon Free and Open Source software for its framework (Drupal), open web standards to guarantee interoperability and avoid vendor lock-ins and Open Data to encourage and create infrastructural conditions to promote data sharing in contexts of little to almost nonexistent collaboration among research groups -- and, last but not least, Open Access to advance the goals of returning public funded research to the public. In practical terms, PECE applies these concepts by:
Enforcing the usage of open data and open document formats (such as open, web safe formats for multimedia files; open formats for documents such as the ODF, and established web standards such as JSON, XML, and RDF for data exchange and relationality);
Providing technical conditions for data sharing by enforcing the usage of flexible copyright licenses, such as Creative Commons suite, when applicable for ethnographic data;
Contributing code directly to Drupal projects, instead of forking code and working locally and not sharing bug fixes and improvements with the larger user and developer community;
Participating and actively contributing to Free and Open Source projects as well as initiatives for Open Access in anthropology and STS, therefore bridging the Free and Open Source community efforts with academic disciplines and transdisciplinary contexts;
Drawing from the orientation of the Open Data community regarding best-practices for data sharing and open inter-exchange formats;
Following the community work for debating and creating "codes of conduct" for Free and Open Source projects, we have also specified a code of conduct for the PECE community. In this process, we brought together our experience and expertise with Free and Open Source development communities to bear with key issues in Open Data and Open Access for the academic community.
PECE relies upon Free and Open Source software for its framework (Drupal), open web standards to guarantee interoperability and avoid vendor lock-ins and Open Data to encourage and create infrastructural conditions to promote data sharing in contexts of little to almost nonexistent collaboration among research groups -- and, last but not least, Open Access to advance the goals of returning public funded research to the public. In practical terms, PECE applies these concepts by: