Background
I have for years had a strong interest in open source software and open development processes. As my involvement with this grew, I started to believe that the marine technology institute I earlier was a part of at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), could move it's science a long step forward if open processes and meeting places on the internet were taken into use.
Art and ship design
With the painting series called Fishbowlship I have tried to analyse design processes through art. The method has been to move what I learned about ship design at the university into a new space.
Fishbowlship
Everything on the internet is visible for everybody and from all directions. The internet may thus be seen as a fishbowl. Fishbowlship is therefore about moving ship design out on the web. The term "fishbowl" used in connection with software development is borrowed from the free software provider zope.org.
Motivation
Sharing of knowledge in general is by many regarded as a moral good in itself. The ideas behind sharing software is described at the Free Software Foundation.
Most, if not all, sciences share knowledge through conferences and scientific papers. This has the advantage of quality assurance, but is archaic when it comes to speed of the publication process and the availability of the knowledge.
The advantage of moving the development processes of a science into open spaces where everybody and anyone can contribute, is the great increase in number of potential test users and developers.
The operative system Linux, which is the backbone of for instance Android mobile phones, is continuously being developed as open software.
Implementation
To establish an open meeting space and a development arena for ship design you need a content management system and a set of principles that guide the arrangement of entities of knowledge, methods and tools that are elements in the design activity.
A starting point for a ship design knowledge hub could be a wiki.