Open Source Herbalism
Discussion
Is Herbalism Open Source?
"Herbalism, on the other hand, is based on traditional knowledge gathered over thousands of years, most of which is still freely available and patent-free. Anyone is free to use that knowledge, improve on it and share it with anyone else. No one “owns” raspberry leaves tea or garlic poultice. There are no copyright constraints to prevent you from making your own herbal medicine. You are still free to plant, harvest and share your own medicinal plant seeds (unlike farmers that use patented herbicide-resistant genetically-modified crops from companies like Monsanto.) This is why I think of herbalism as open-source medicine.
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Most production tools used by herbalism are also “open-source”. Herbalism uses material found in nature and uses simple processing techniques that are within the reach of even the poorest people.
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Herbalism tends to be a low-key, low-cost medical solution. Because of this, herbalism is not a very lucrative business model compared to the pharmaceutical industry. This is in part why herbalism struggles to promote itself efficiently and fight the pressures applied from the closed-source world.
Because the balance of power is so overwhelmingly skewed towards commercial interests, herbalism is under constant threat from pharmaceuticals and its enablers. This is a situation that software developers can recognize.
Large software corporations like Microsoft will often raise the specter of litigation against open-source projects or lobby against open-source projects. Thanks to these efforts, it’s not uncommon to see governments and other institutions go against their own financial interests and exclude free and open-source solutions from their software purchase policies.
We find a similar situation with health care. The marketing and public relations clout of the pharmaceutical industries overshadows the means of herbalists by many orders of magnitude. This tends to create a bias against herbalism in the media as herbalists rarely have the money and the skills to promote themselves efficiently and influence public opinion on a global scale.
On the other hand, the lobbying power of the pharmaceutical industry is quite formidable. They spent $900 million on lobbying between 1998 and 2005, more than any other industry. Because of this, governments may pass legislation that will not only favor the interests of pharmaceuticals, but that can also make it harder (or near-impossible) for herbalists and other alternative medicine to practice and sell their products. These regulations are claimed to be for the public good but they usually end up simply protecting the pharmaceutical industry’s commercial interests and increase the cost of health-care.
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Herbalism offers a simple, open, low-cost, accessible medical solution that is worth using and protecting. It’s one of humanity’s greatest treasures and heritages and should continue to be shared and practiced freely as we continue to reap the benefits of pharmaceutical medicine.
At first glance, herbalism and software development would seem to be at opposite ends of the spectrum. In fact these people have a lot in common and would benefit from each other’s expertise.
Herbalism ties into the values and vision behind the open-source ideology and definitely ties into the “self-reliance” and “community” aspects of its movement. The ability to grow, process and use natural ingredients with freely accessible medical knowledge applicable in every day life should be appealing to the mindset of open-source enthusiasts.
Also, the tools and practices developed to foster open source software and protect it from closed-source threats could be applied to the herbalism world to great effect." (http://webstylemag.com/herbalism-open-source-medicine)