Why Open Source?
We are based on the principles of Open Source and Free Software – that’s to say, we believe that innovation in the meshed society of the internet age happens faster, deeper and better if everyone is able to collaborate freely, without having to constantly seek permission to proceed from copyright holders.
Open source grants permission in advance using OSI-approved copyright licenses that give everyone the freedom to use, improve and share software any way they want. We think proprietary alternatives offer less flexibility to the customer and slow growth and evolution of the markets they serve. The business opportunity to address this in the growing ‘Mobility as a Service’ global market, worth over £600 billion per annum, is substantial. We’re not giving anything away; rather, we’re sharing to grow the opportunity faster.
We have chosen to grow a community that uses the Mozilla Public License version 2 for all its new work. That means we can re-use existing code under a wide range of licenses, including the Apache License and the GNU General Public License v3. You will be able to fork any existing codebase under a compatible license into TravelSpirit so we can benefit from and improve it.
The Competitions
Everyone is a winner of these competitions, because entering means you have joined TravelSpirit and can share in the opportunity. But the best entries in the view of our Theme Champions will be awarded the kudos of a place in the launch event for TravelSpirit, to be held in Manchester on May 3-4. We expect competition winners to be sought-after contributors by TravelSpirit’s commercial participants, so you will want to win!
The competitions are:
- Best Business Plan
- Best UX
- Best Hack
- Best Architecture
Enter by 24th March 2016 and we will let you know the result by the end of March 2016. To enter, please ‘Become a Member’ through our website registration process, and attach your application during registration. Or register, and then upload or update your application at any time before or on the 24th March 2016. through logging in and updating your profile. Your entry will not be published by TravelSpirit, but by entering you agree that your entry is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
PLEASE FIND THE FULL BRIEF AND APPLICATION FORM BELOW.
