[okfn-discuss] new brand, new website: coming up next week

Mon Apr 14 11:03:46 UTC 2014

Friedrich Lindenberg:

> To be honest, the slogan strikes me as a bit vacuous as it avoids telling us *how* data/knowledge/muffins will have any effect, and instead goes for the “change” meme, which I has been beaten to death by a combination of TED talks and American presidential campaigns for the past couple of years.
> 
> It’s ironic that the slogan is essentially a statement of faith.

A few words from a long-time lurker on this list... (who always had a bit of trouble with the "open definition"). I just want to add that if we look deep enough we're likely to find that it's not about data or information, not even knowledge. It's not even about ideas, which so many of us think is what changes the world. It's their implementation and usage which does. So it's always people who matter. And if I'm not mistaken it's mostly people who the OKF successfully addresses to raise their awareness for issues related to open/data/knowledge, in order to take action and think about it, produce, publish and use it. And even then people can use it for the right or the wrong cause. But in any case to me it's much more about living people and values, and therefore maybe faith, yes. Without them open/data/knowledge are literally dead artifacts. And without them words like "change" become empty. 

Regards,

Dinu