Disaster as a spur to development
The idea that good things can come from terrible events is not particularly accurate, but it’s true that the Sahana community that has grown since the Indian Ocean tsunami is a remarkable thing. In his conference article Does it take a disaster to understand the power of open development?, Ross Gardler discusses Shahani Weerawarana’s presentation on Sahana.
As the author of the post I’m interested in the comment that “The idea that good things can come from terrible events is not particularly accurate”. If you could take a few minutes to explain the inaccuracy, either in a comment on the blog or via email I would be happy to address the issue in the post.
I’m keen to ensure that the post accurately reflects the view of those who know more abut Sahana than I do.
Comment by Ross Gardler — November 18, 2008 @ 5:04 am
Ross - thanks for the reply. It’s not an inaccuracy about Sahana - it’s just a personal opinion about the danger of narratives that take the line of “hey, this was a terrible thing, but something good came out of it”. Those narratives can be valid, but not always. It wasn’t intended as a criticism of the article, which I was glad to see out there.
Comment by Paul C — November 18, 2008 @ 4:36 pm
Paul, thanks for the calrification. I agree with your comments.
We (OSS Watch - an open source advisory service to the UK education sector) plan to turn this blog post into a full case study on the validity of open development. I will ensure that the final version has the focus in the right place and will pass the case study to the Sahana team for review before publication.
It will be a good few weeks before it reaches that stage though.
Comment by Ross Gardler — November 18, 2008 @ 7:20 pm