I just bought a copy of the web based e-book -- very nice!
The people behind it are Scott Fortmann-Roe who made Insight Maker, and Gene Bellinger created http://systemswiki.org !
Who owns Insight Maker?
This is a comment from Scott...
I don't want to muddy the waters with Richard, but just to clarify the ownership of Insight Maker:
1) i personally have full rights and ownership to the simulation code that is ultimately used in Insight Maker. This is the code I do development on.
2) I release a copy of this software under an open source license that people can use for whatever they want. This copy is what is currently available on GitHub
3) This open source copy of the software is used in Insight Maker which is run by Give Team.
The key point of this setup is that the code for Insight Maker is open source and anyone can use it. But my copy of the code isn't bound by the open source license and I can release copies of it under other licenses in the future if I need to (e.g. if I had a consulting arrangement I could provide the client with a copy of Insight Maker that they didn't need to publish changes to, which the open-source license requires).
The World3 model is a detailed simulation of human population growth from 1900 into the future. It includes many environmental and demographic factors.
Use the sliders to experiment with the initial amount of non-renewable resources to see how these affect the simulation. Does increasing the amount of non-renewable resources (which could occur through the development of better exploration technologies) improve our future? Also, experiment with the start date of a low birth-rate, environmentally focused policy.
