Open-source appropriate technology
Open-source appropriate technology (OSAT) is appropriate technology developed through the principles of the open-design movement. Appropriate technology is technology designed with special consideration for the environmental, ethical, cultural, social, political, and economic aspects of the community it is intended for. Open design is public and licensed to allow it to be used, modified and distributed freely. Benefits Open source is a development method for appropriate technology that utilizes distributed peer review and transparency of process. Open-source-appropriate technology has potential to drive applied sustainability. The built-in continuous peer-review can result in better quality, higher reliability, and more flexibility than conventional design/patenting of technologies. The free nature of the knowledge provides lower costs, particularly for those technologies that benefit little from scale of manufacture. Finally, OSAT enables the end to predatory intellectual property lock-in. This is particularly important for relieving suffering and saving lives in the developing world. In an article published on Harvard Business Review, Vasilis Kostakis and Andreas Roos argue that the "open-source" model can act as a driver of sustainable development, since it enables localization for communities that do not have the resources to tempt commercial developers to provide local versions of their products, thus minimizing the need to