Natives of a connected world: free and open source software in archaeology

Abstract

Abstract Abstract Archaeological research is increasingly based on computational methods and software. This development has profound economical and epistemological implications that must be critically reviewed and understood with respect to financial barriers to reproducible research and the 'black box' effect that proprietary software introduces into archaeological research. Free and open source software (FOSS) offers an alternative model of software development that is better aligned with both the economics of project-based research and the demands of good scientific practice. FOSS is not a new concept but reflects the original idea of software as part of the public research domain – an idea that is concordant with the nature of the internet and globally connected research. Keywords: Archaeologyopen source softwarescienceknowledgereproducible research