Why Open-Source?

Both 4CMR and the E3 Foundation are committed to making our work open-source. This means anyone can view the basis for our work, see the models we use, download and run these models, make changes to the models to better reflect their beliefs of the way the world works, and create their own ways of analysing problems. The only requirement is that when you make changes, you make it clear to the world what you have changed and why, and that you make your own version open-source as well.

The open-source nature of the Developed-Developing Nations work is part of our larger programme of open-source, integrated modelling. The committment to open-source work springs from several beliefs:

Rationality requires an ability to understand fully how the findings of a study were obtained
That ability includes the capacity to reproduce those results
That capacity requires access to the models and data used in analyses
That capacity also requires clear and transparent explanations of how the models and data were produced
A cornerstone of rigorous scientific work is the sharing of models, data and arguments
People and nations affected by findings have a right to understand the validity of those findings

We therefore consider our models, data and findings communal in nature, with everyone being free to examine what we are doing and how we are doing it, and to comment on the process. If you join the Developed-Developing Nations programme, you are making a similar committment to this communal vision of the scientific process, and will be expected to abide by it.

Why Open-Source?

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