Build Date: Tue Mar 10 02:30:05 2026 UTC
Subtlety is not one of my virtues.
-- Johnnie Royale
I'm Open to Anything
1999-05-17 09:23:17
Open Source software has innumerable examples that prove by existence that the concept can work. Hell, I'm not even going to insult you by giving the typical Ziff-Davis freelancer list of successful free software projects. However, there hasn't been equal support for the idea of Open Content, the extension of Open Source into the world of documentation, literature, music and art. Maybe opencontent.org will change that.
There are a ton of reasons that software developers write code that don't have anything to do with money: for fame, for personal fulfilment, for payback to the community, for the pure joy of creation. Open Source software can address these needs of the developer, perhaps at the sacrifice of financial ones. Considering that so many artists and writers have similar motivations, it only makes sense that the Open ______ concept would attract them.
opencontent.org is pretty sparse right now. They have a nifty animated-GIF logo, but that's not going to carry them too far. It's also fairly sparse on theory. But the very BEST part of the site, I think, is the very cool "Open Content License," weirdly acronymed to "OPL." It's got practically everything that a free content license would need, nicely balancing the needs of the information creator and the information user.
Anyways, if you're interested in Open Source, you should check out Open Content.
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