Free Culture

Experience shared and built upon freely

The digitization of art and knowledge provides a unique opportunity to get back to our free culture roots. I contribute to free culture primarily through participation in open source software projects and groups.

One of my great inspirations is Lawrence Lessig’s keynote presentation at the annual Open Source Convention (OSCON) made on July 24, 2002. My favorite parts are:

• Creativity and innovation always builds on the past.
• The past always tries to control the creativity that builds upon it.
• Free societies enable the future by limiting this power of the past.
• Ours is less and less a free society.

O’Reilly Network — Free Culture: Lawrence Lessig Keynote from OSCON 2002

Resources:

http://search.creativecommons.org/

Images

• http://commons.wikimedia.org/
• http://www.nasa.gov/
• http://www.flickr.com/commons/

Books

• http://www.gutenberg.org/

Software

• http://www.opensourcewindows.org/ A list of some of the best open source software for Microsoft Windows.
• http://www.opensourcemac.org/ A list of some of the best open source software for Apple Mac OS X.

My Projects

The following projects currently get most of my attention:

WordPress (My employer)

Previously:

• Ubuntu
• Firefox
• Flock

To my surprise, some of my photos have been used in news articles and guides:

• http://www.nowpublic.com/free_wireless
• http://www.nowpublic.com/my_lunch
• Schmap San Francisco Guide