OLPC and CC Free Content Drive 92
gnujoshua writes "In his blog, SJ Klein, director of community content for OLPC, notes a collaboration among Creative Commons, One Laptop per Child, and TextbookRevolution.org. They are compiling together free and CC-licensed works — and they are asking for people to help them by submitting links to free books, movies, and music. Creative Commons will be burning a LiveDVD to be distributed at South by Southwest; OLPC will be making bundles of books to send all over the world; and Textbook Revolution will be compiling a list of good and free college-level textbooks for the relaunch of their site."
Good (Score:5, Interesting)
More important: relevant content by language (Score:5, Interesting)
Simply put -- why aren't we hearing about a focus on education that matters -- in the languages of those who need it most?
Rifters (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Good (Score:3, Interesting)
Moglen
At the same time, how is it possible to produce those works if you need to spend your time producing something salable so that you can eat? Somebody needs to pay you for something, and the most effective way we've figured out to do that seems to be to restrict availability of what you produce to only those who can pay you for it.
I think this model is horribly broken, but what would be a good, general, replacement for it? Not everyone can get sponsorships...
Re:Good (Score:4, Interesting)
well... (Score:4, Interesting)
Though I do not doubt that for some (high-cost) things it would cause problems, as a general statement, there are a few answers to your question.
First of, let's not make a false dillemma; it's not a matter of all the time devoted to produce those works, or all the time devoted towards something that earns money - at least, not necessarily. One can, for instance, have another job that earns you money, and create 'art' works (or whatever) as an aside. While time is limited, it's seldom limited to the point where one has absolutely NO time left to do something else than 'work for a living'.
Secondly, while it's not always possible to have one major mecenas (as was the case in the middle ages, often), the internet also provides the possibility (at least, potentially) to have micro-payments. So, instead of one big sponsor, one can have several minor ones. As long as your product is popular, I think there is a definite chance of that. (As an example; see Freenet; it's paying a full time devl for several years now, just by what people donate to the project.)
Secondly; your assertation at the end is false. There have been examples enough where people did not need to pay for something (well, unless one goes into semantics and conclude that only the sun rises for free). It's not an absolute necessity; though of course, in our capitalistic society (which I agree works much better than a communistic one