Knowledge and free technology

Knowledge can disappear surprisingly quickly. It can be lost when one specialist leaves, a website closes, source code is withheld, a manufacturer stops supporting a product or practical skills are no longer passed on. Even information that still exists can become unusable when it cannot be found, understood, tested or adapted.

ASK-Solutions works to preserve knowledge by putting it into use, documenting it and making technical results available in forms that others can study and continue. This includes written explanation, source code, hardware designs, project histories and direct learning between people.

Knowledge grows when it can be used

Sharing a finished answer is useful, but it is not always enough. People also need to understand how a result was reached, which assumptions were made, what failed and how the work can be adapted to a different situation.

We therefore value forms of knowledge that allow others to:

inspect and understand how something works;
repeat, test and verify a method;
repair or improve an existing result;
adapt software, hardware or documentation to another need;
teach the knowledge to someone else;
continue a project when its original developer or maintainer is no longer available.

What free technology means

Free software and free hardware make technical knowledge more durable because the design itself can remain available. A usable licence, source material and documentation allow people to use, study, modify and share the work rather than depending entirely on one vendor or author.

Publication alone does not guarantee that a project will remain understandable or maintainable. Good naming, documentation, version history, open formats and realistic build or installation instructions are also part of preserving knowledge.

Practical and tacit knowledge

Not all knowledge fits into a manual. A person may know how a material feels before it fails, how to position a tool safely, how to diagnose an intermittent fault or how to explain a difficult concept in a way that another person can use.

ASK-Solutions therefore combines documentation with practical learning. Workshops, repairs, mentoring, internships and shared work environments allow people to observe, practise and discuss knowledge that would otherwise remain implicit.

How we work towards this goal

developing and maintaining free software and free hardware;
publishing source code, designs, technical explanations and project histories;
using open standards and transferable file formats where practical;
documenting decisions, dependencies, repairs and lessons learned;
creating opportunities for people to learn through real technical work;
connecting experienced knowledge holders with people who want to learn;
preserving older projects when they still contain relevant technical or educational knowledge.

Projects that make this concrete

Current projects such as Nocterra, Bookkeeping and WasteBug develop software intended to remain understandable, adaptable and under the user’s control.

Historical work such as A340GC, libGC, RDDP, BFX and OpenBus connected free software and hardware development with simulation, education and collaborative learning. The Cosmicus A340 simulator showed how a real technical project could also become an environment in which children learned by building together.

The Owl’s Nest continues this line in a broader practical setting. It brings people, tools, knowledge and local possibilities together without making the model dependent on one address or one set of facilities.

Knowledge as a public subject

The goal described here is about ASK-Solutions as an organisation. The public Knowledge page has a different role: it introduces the subject itself, explains our broader philosophy and provides a place for related articles and developments.