There have been and still are intense flamewars about the use of the terms free, libre and open in the context of software, knowledge and licensing. As the Free Software movement was the first in defining the main concepts (of copyleft, using copyright to protect the freedoms and thus stimulate sharing of knowledge), let us start there.

Joost Smiers, Professor of Political Science and Research Fellow in the Research Group Arts & Economics at the Utrecht School of the Arts, the Netherlands, together with his colleague Marieke van Schijndel recently published an essay arguing for the abolition of copyright.

The Antenna Tux radio station from Germany is broadcasting an interview about the Free Technology Academy with me on 22 September 2009.

A while ago David Jacovkis and myself did a workshop for and at the Trans National Institute (TNI) in Amsterdam.

As communicated here before, and by several stakeholders, such as government (1, 2)  and educational partners (1, »

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The ODF Alliance, of which the Free Knowledge Institute is a member, has published a Fact Sheet [PDF; also available as text on their website] for governments and others interested in how Microsoft's SP2 for Office 2007 handles ODF. The ODF Allliance says their testing revealed "serious shortcomings that, left unaddressed, would break the open standards based interoperability that the

The other day I met with two filmmakers in Spain. They are planning to make a documentary about Free Knowledge in general. They would like to show to the general public the aspects and culture within the various communities, ranging from Free Software projects to the editors of Wikipedia, from people protecting public knowledge and culture to people fighting for keeping the internet open. And place these movements in perspective to the intents of corporate interests in the privatisation of knowledge and enclosure of our culture.

The European Parliament will vote about the future of the internet. Several plans are under discussion to lock up the internet and condition it to corporate interest. The Free Knowledge Institute participates in the Open Net Coalition to work together and warn people for this inminent danger.

URGENT - VOTING IN EU PARLIAMENT 5th of MAY 2009
Don't let the EU parliament lock up the Internet! There will be no way back!

See for more information: the Blackout Europe website.