Unitarian minister and blogger Andrew Brown today posted a scanned PDF of the only in-depth biography of Universalist pioneer George de Benneville. I feel a bit bad because I’ve owned a copy for years — he paid dearly for his — and I never put it up. He alludes to the problem of copyright —… Continue reading “Life of de Benneville” for download
Category: Open
Everything open source or inspired by the movement. Free and open-source software is moving to the FOSS category.
World’s Fair Use Day
The concept of fair use of copyrighted intellectual property is probably under more strain now than ever before. The long term effects on a free, creative people are not known, but I can’t think it’ll be anything good. Public Knowledge is producing World’s Fair Use Day tomorrow, January 12, to draw attention to this issue.… Continue reading World’s Fair Use Day
Without free software, there would have been no Web
And open — that is, non-proprietary — standards, too. No secret blend of herbs and spices here. We’d certainly no Web as we know it. Not even close. Today is the sixteenth anniversary of the deed of software by CERN — “the supercollider people” — for the software that makes the Web work. Here’s the… Continue reading Without free software, there would have been no Web
Bible for Android?
No, I’m not preparing for a robotic mission. But after years of rejecting having a cell phone, I gave in — and did so with an Android phone. (After reading how a significant plurality of homeless persons have a cell phone, and how it is a leading entry-point for Internet technologies for persons in developing… Continue reading Bible for Android?
Priestley the open-sourcer
Word of a Sunday book review in the New York Times (January 23) floated around the office a few days ago. I was sure it would hit the Unitarian Universalist blogosphere, but didn’t. The book? The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America by Steven Johnson. Its subject?… Continue reading Priestley the open-sourcer
Watching GA from a Linux machine (and open formats)
(Please read to the end; I have something to ask you.) UU Mom was looking to watch tonight’s opening session of the Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly (UUA GA) online, but it is only available in a proprietary Windows format. She noted: It would be nice if they’d use an Open Source program. We missed… Continue reading Watching GA from a Linux machine (and open formats)
OpenOffice.org training
Michelle Murrain (Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology) presented an OpenOffice.org — the free and open source productivity suite — training (or “untraining”) for Google as a part of their TechTalk series, and you can watch it here. Details at NOSI.
Download Firefox 3, break record
The Mozilla Foundation is try to break a 24-hour software download world record — or rather, establish a mark — with its release of the newest version of its browser: Firefox 3. Having used it a while, I really like it. Ubuntu Linux users have been getting updates of the preliminary versions (release candidates) and… Continue reading Download Firefox 3, break record
Open media formats for Unitarian Universalists
Are there any Unitarian Universalists — or keen open codec advocates who read this blog — who use Ogg Vorbis (audio) or Ogg Theora (video) to play, share, stream or store media? These are free and open-source media formats. I may have a project. In related news, I bought a refurb digital audio player (“MP3… Continue reading Open media formats for Unitarian Universalists
NYT: Lessig on orphan works copyright
Stanford Law professor and Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig had an opinion piece in the New York Times today worth reading, even if copyright issues aren’t your first concern. (“Little Orphan Artworks“) The problem is that there quite a few mature works that are not old enough to be in the public domain but where… Continue reading NYT: Lessig on orphan works copyright