Yesterday, Cory Doctorow wrote that millions of public domain images, recovered from Internet Archive’s optical text recognition, have been uploaded to Flickr. The listing includes the text context, and a link back to the book. Like a image index as much as an image resource. So I’m looking for Universalists, of course. Because the books… Continue reading Lost pictures of Universalist, recovered
Category: Freedom
We need free and open-source tools for our work
It’s not enough for some of us to sprinkle a handful of digital resources into liberally-licensed common use. I think we should be more demanding about the kind of tools we use to wake them: software that is free to use, free to share and (if we have the skill) free to build upon. Our… Continue reading We need free and open-source tools for our work
Creative Commons-licensed Unitarian Universalist sites and resources
Following up on the Creative Commons theme. Here are some congregational websites and like resources that are covered in full or part by a Creative Commons licence. The headers to each section go to a human readable version of the license, presented here starting with the most permissive. (Check the version of the individual licenses… Continue reading Creative Commons-licensed Unitarian Universalist sites and resources
What else here has a Creative Commons license?
So, again on Facebook, a discussion about Creative Commons licensing and the problem (both real and imagined) of using another person’s copyrighted work without permission. As I’ve written before, this unauthorized, unlicensed use has a special place in our history (The 1811 “pirate edition” of the Treatise on Atonement), and that our forebears made a… Continue reading What else here has a Creative Commons license?
A liberal license in a liberal service book
Free-culture and free software advocates easily identify art and technology as fields of interest. Software to share creates common tools for further creativity and interoperability. Riffing on existing films, photos and songs unlocks creativity. Drawing from the public domain preserves human accomplishment and refreshes it. These are easy to see, but worship? Copyright and liturgy… Continue reading A liberal license in a liberal service book
Your searchable hymnal bookshelf
I have too many hymnals. They’re useful reference works for worship and portals into the lived theology of a community. But they’re massive and costly. Enter the iPad interface for the Hymnary.org scanned hymnals collection. Which is a misnomer; I use it on my desktop, though the idea is to keep a tablet computer at… Continue reading Your searchable hymnal bookshelf
Document Freedom Day 2012
If you create documents in closed or proprietary formats, at a basic level you do not control them. I wrote about it at length last year. Consider, please, saving and sharing your documents in an open format. LibreOffice and OpenOffice.org are two (related) mature and robust office suites that are both free (libre) and open… Continue reading Document Freedom Day 2012
A good (humanistic?) “sermon” with fish and loaves
Software Freedom Law Center executive director Eben Moglen lays it down about the freedom of ideas and the stewardship of human minds and the free access those minds need to information. Also, a fascinating review of the development of United States copyright law with respect to early immigration and religious freedom. (Made me think about… Continue reading A good (humanistic?) “sermon” with fish and loaves
Consider this blog blacked-out
Lots of sites — like the English-language Wikipedia — are getting blacked out tomorrow in protest of SOPA and PIPA, and encouraging readers to contact their lawmakers to oppose these — but since I have a small readership I thought it more practical to say why than to figure out how to do so. It’s… Continue reading Consider this blog blacked-out
The language of faith cries to be free
In the open-source software world, advocates make a distinction between “free as in beer” and “free as in freedom.” While free (of cost) beer is nice, the freedom to share, modify, extract and even profit from (depending on the license) is truly precious, and has allowed an ecosystem to develop around not only software but… Continue reading The language of faith cries to be free