[okfn-discuss] Free Software tools for OKFN -- please contribute

Sat Nov 30 03:30:41 UTC 2013

On Fri, Nov 29, 2013 at 5:27 PM, Gene Shackman <eval_gene at yahoo.com> wrote:

> "At any rate, the issue *here* isn't about reaching the public"
> Okay, that is cleared up. So at present, you are not aiming at educating
> the public.
>
> Well, the Open Knowledge Foundation is interested in educating the public
about "openness" and many people feel that software should be included in
that, at least to be consistent. Given the status quo, that the Open
Knowledge Foundation is using proprietary software when Open alternatives
exist, many people in the community are speaking up to first educate the
internal community, so that's the current discussion.

> "it's about reaching the OKF community "
> You mean some specific group of people? You mean the people involved in
> this organization?
> http://okfn.org/
>
>
Indeed, there's no good reason for the Open Knowledge Foundation to have an
"N" in the acronym, and I think some people are pushing to correct this. I
don't know the status, and I'm not sure which acronym to use right now.

> So the goal is to get people involved in okfn to agree with everyone else
> in the free software movement? Just so I know, also, where do I find
> information about what everyone else says?
>
> Gene
>

Many or most of the people in the OKFN already agree with the aims of the
Free Software movement, even if they aren't dogmatic about it. The Debian
Free Software Guidelines are actually the initial source of the OKFN's
definition for "Open". Check it out, they barely changed anything:

http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines
http://opendefinition.org/okd/

The entire OKFN existence evolved in part out of the Free Software
movement. The exact details are complex.

Anyway, the push for OKFN to use Free Software is only slightly removed
from a situation in which the OKFN were not itself opening its own data or
writings and people complain about hypocrisy. The OKFN's own mission is
already aligned with the Free Software movement, just the focus is on
different media and less on software. The practical considerations are
complex, of course, and not everyone knows about all the best options.

Put simply, many of us in the community want to help to OKFN to use more
Free/Open-Source software whenever possible, and this is partly a matter of
just identifying how to do so while still effectively going about the tasks
that are being done.

Hope that's clear. And for the record, I'm just some outside person
subscribed to the list, caring about these issues, and working to promote
freedom and openness in my own ways.

Cheers,
Aaron

--
Aaron Wolf
wolftune.com
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