Open content

Open content, coined by analogy with open source, describes any kind of creative work (for example, articles, pictures, audio, video, etc.) that is published under a non-restrictive copyright license and format that explicitly allows the copying of the information. (An example is the GNU Free Documentation License, which is used by Wikipedia and Nupedia.) "Open content" is also sometimes used to describe content that can be modified by anyone. Of course, this is not without prior review by other participating parties--but there is no closed group like a commercial encyclopedia publisher which is responsible for all the editing.

Just as open source software is sometimes described simply as Free Software (not to be confused with Freeware), open content materials can be more briefly described as free materials. But not every open content is free in the GNU GPL sense (for instance the Open Directory). See public domain, free content and free software movement.

Open content projects (in alphabetical order):

• Aozora Bunko (in Japanese) - free digital Japanese books
• Asian Open Source Centre - contains an open content GFDL wiki on open source
• CapitanCook - The free travel guide
• Creative Commons
• ExtinctionLevelEvent.com - Open Content Web Comic [1] (http://www.extinctionlevelevent.com/)
• Jake[?] [2] (http://jake-db.org/) - Research software and database where content is built in an open source way
• GNUtemberg[?] [3] (http://www.gnutemberg.org/) in italian.
• Linux documentation project [4] (http://www.tldp.org/) - Content project to develop documentation for Linux
• Nupedia [5] (http://www.nupedia.com) - peer-reviewed encyclopedia
• Opencode[?] [6] (http://eon.law.harvard.edu/opencode) - consortium for open research and content
• OpenContent [7] (http://www.opencontent.org) - open source licensing scheme for information content
• Open Content for Education[?] [8] (http://www.life-open-content.org/)
• Open-education.org[?] [9] (http://www.open-education.org) - Portal and advocacy-site for collaborative creation of Open Content Educational materials.
• OpenCourseWare [10] (http://web.mit.edu/ocw) - open sharing of undergraduate and graduate course content
• Openlaw[?] [11] (http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw) - Experiment in the open crafting of legal arguments
• Open Music Registry[?] [12] (http://www.openmusicregistry.org) - Open sharing of music using an Open Audio License
• Open Directory Project [13] (http://dmoz.org) - web directory like Yahoo!.
• Project Gutenberg [14] (http://promo.net/pg/)
• Public Library of Science [15] (http://plos.org/)
• PlanetMath [16] (http://planetmath.org/) - Math for the people, by the people.
• Wikipedia [17] (http://www.wikipedia.com) - free encyclopedia and this site.
• Woochi - Wine Encyclopaedia
• World Lecture Hall[?] [18] (http://www.utexas.edu/world/lecture/) - Online course materials
• The Worldwide Lexicon

See also public domain resources, semi-public domain resources[?], public domain image resources, collaborative writing

Licenses

• Design Science License
• GNU Free Documentation License
• October Open Game License (OOGL) - a more open version of Open Game License[?]
• Open Publication License - License for the Open Content Project
• Open Directory Project License used by Open Directory Project
• Open Game License[?] - License of the Open Gaming Foundation[?], as drafted by Wizards of the Coast.
• Open Content License

External links

• - alqua.com, Free documents (http://alqua.com)
• The open content idea and creative works: Creative Commons (http://www.creativecommons.org)
• Design Science License (http://www.dsl.org/copyleft/dsl.txt)
• The open content idea as a library: ibiblio (http://www.ibiblio.org)
• Copyleft and the Information Renaissance (http://dsl.org/copyleft/)
• Jan Newmarch, "Open Content Licenses," http://jan.netcomp.monash.edu.au (http://jan.netcomp.monash.edu.au/opendoc/paper.html)
• http://www.opencontent.org/
• Open directory category: Open Content (http://dmoz.org/Computers/Open_Source/Open_Content/)
• Open Content resources and mailing list at OpenContentList.com (http://www.opencontentlist.com/resources)
• Public Library of Science (http://plos.org/)
• Licenses for Documentation at gnu.org (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html#DocumentationLicenses)
• This Google search (http://www.google.com/search?&q=%22Permission+is+granted+to+copy%22+%22GNU+Free+Documentation+License%22+&btnG=Google+Search) attempts to find documents with GFDL license grant boilerplate.

Credit

The list of open content projects are partly based on The Institutional Design of Open Source Programming (http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_1/schweik/index.html) on Firstmonday[?]