What do you think "openness" is?

I'm just starting an online course called "Why Open?" on P2PU. I've done other courses there over the last few years, such as Open Badges and Curation and like to dip in and out of various courses as the mood and interest takes me.

Image shared by CC Licence thanks to Tom Magiery

Here's the link to the "Why Open?" course -> https://p2pu.org/en/courses/588/content/1143/ and this blog has been set up just to hold my thoughts and blogposts on it.

The first thing we've been asked to do is a reflective blogpost on what we think "openness" is. I like this approach as it gets you to think about what the course theme is all about before you get into the meat of the course itself. It's a bit of a brain-storming session where you move from the familiar "what you already know" to new concepts, thoughts and ideas.

To me "openness" has a few different connotations. Being open is an approach to things, an outlook on life. Open can be like a door that you can go through, if you so choose. Open can be a delicious sandwich - no lid on it, so you can see what's involved from the start. Open, as in software, is something that has been made available to all to use/adapt freely - but I know that open isn't always necessarily the same as "free". I'm wondering if open can also be proprietary? You can fork open software without necessarily having to keep your new version of it open to others. In this case is open like a can of worms?

I'm looking forward to the course - you might even say that I'm open to it.