The concepts of openness and informational freedom are consistent with the ethos of the gospel, the religion of free giving. And so I think it would be a good idea for myself to share with you the organizations, websites, and people who are helping the shape of the future of open information sharing, with special attention to those doing it with a Christian focus.
The Information Freedom Concept
Christians Against Copyright — a website run by Philip Ward, with the purpose of furthering dialogue about the issues of Copyright and how they relate to Christianity. Despite the title of his website, he takes a fairly tolerate approach to copyright per se, and encourages authors to make the journey from “all rights reserved” to “some rights reserved.”
Creative Commons — this is a website, from a more secular perspective, which encourages authors to carefully examine just how much restriction they want to place on their works, and provides user-friendly ways of doing so. It also helps to allow people to search for information already licensed under creative common licenses.
Software
Ubuntu — the Ubuntu operating system is a completely open-source alternative to Microsoft or Apple’s operating systems. If I had to hazard a guess, I would imagine that Ubuntu or something similar will eventually become the dominant operating system, because it’s free, and the open-source paradigm allows for a lot more customizability and quicker fixing of security threats.
OpenOffice.org — This is an open-source alternative to Microsoft’s Office Suite.
WordPress.org — This is the world’s leading blogging tool, and it’s open-source. It’s what this website was created with.
SourceForge.net — A center for open-source software development and sharing.
There’s currently two viable alternatives in terms of modern public domain Bibles. Neither is good enough yet. Work is officially still in progress on the World English Bible, while the New Heart English Bible is in an an unknown state of development, and is of really low quality. The NET Bible is considered “open” by some, but it seems to me to be only an improved variation on the same old we-control-the-use-of-the-Bible routine.
If you want to go with more time-tested older versions, check out my public domain bibles page.
informational freedom
The concepts of openness and informational freedom are consistent with the ethos of the gospel, the religion of free giving. And so I think it would be a good idea for myself to share with you the organizations, websites, and people who are helping the shape of the future of open information sharing, with special attention to those doing it with a Christian focus.
The Information Freedom Concept
Christians Against Copyright — a website run by Philip Ward, with the purpose of furthering dialogue about the issues of Copyright and how they relate to Christianity. Despite the title of his website, he takes a fairly tolerate approach to copyright per se, and encourages authors to make the journey from “all rights reserved” to “some rights reserved.”
Creative Commons — this is a website, from a more secular perspective, which encourages authors to carefully examine just how much restriction they want to place on their works, and provides user-friendly ways of doing so. It also helps to allow people to search for information already licensed under creative common licenses.
Software
Ubuntu — the Ubuntu operating system is a completely open-source alternative to Microsoft or Apple’s operating systems. If I had to hazard a guess, I would imagine that Ubuntu or something similar will eventually become the dominant operating system, because it’s free, and the open-source paradigm allows for a lot more customizability and quicker fixing of security threats.
OpenOffice.org — This is an open-source alternative to Microsoft’s Office Suite.
WordPress.org — This is the world’s leading blogging tool, and it’s open-source. It’s what this website was created with.
SourceForge.net — A center for open-source software development and sharing.
Bible Software
The CrossWire Bible Society — an online place Bible-oriented site for software development and sharing. Their website is also the home of the SWORD Project.
The Bible
There’s currently two viable alternatives in terms of modern public domain Bibles. Neither is good enough yet. Work is officially still in progress on the World English Bible, while the New Heart English Bible is in an an unknown state of development, and is of really low quality. The NET Bible is considered “open” by some, but it seems to me to be only an improved variation on the same old we-control-the-use-of-the-Bible routine.
If you want to go with more time-tested older versions, check out my public domain bibles page.