Creative Commons, Open Source

Students Say Textbooks are too Expensive – Could an Open Access Model be the Answer?

2 March, 2016 // 1 Comment

For university students, textbooks have been both a saviour and a bane. Having most of the essential readings in a single volume enables students to access resources easily. Despite mostly being used [Read More ...]

Study Finds Open Source Textbooks as Effective as Commercial

15 November, 2015 // 3 Comments

A recent study has found that college students who used open educational resources (OER) in their undergraduate courses performed as well or better than those assigned commercial textbooks, even [Read More ...]

BQ Cervantes Open Source eReader is Back in Stock

6 August, 2015 // 3 Comments

When I introduced you to the Cervantes ereader from the Spanish device maker bq a couple months ago, my joy at finding an ereader that runs open source software was tempered by the fact that it was [Read More ...]

LibreOffice 5.0 Now Available

5 August, 2015 // 3 Comments

Libre Office is an open-source office suite available on many platforms (even Android) and capable of editing word files, presentations, spreadsheets, etc. Libre Office has been maintained by The [Read More ...]

Is the Booq Cervantes the First Open-Source eReader ?

19 June, 2015 // 12 Comments

A reader has tipped me to the news that Booq, the Spanish ereader importer, is now promoting one of its ereaders as an open-source device. Booq has been selling ereaders bearing the Cervantes name [Read More ...]

Creative Commons is Out to Kill the Stock Photos Used on eBook Covers, and They Want Your Help

12 June, 2015 // 0 Comments

Here's one of those brilliant ideas that someone should have come up with years ago. For the past six months Creative Commons has been hard at work on a mobile app called The List. This innocuous [Read More ...]

Flickr Adds Public Domain, CC-Zero License

31 March, 2015 // 1 Comment

Flickr announced on Monday that it was adding CC-Zero and Public Domain licensing options. Users who want to share their images freely with the public now have the option to release their work with [Read More ...]

Readium, NYPL to Host eBook Hackathon Next Month

24 December, 2014 // 0 Comments

Should you find yourself in Manhattan on the second Wednesday of January, you might want to stop by the New York Public Library - and not just for the books. The NYPL is partnering with the Readium [Read More ...]

Flickr Pulls CC-Licensed Images From Its Wall Art Program Following Outcry

19 December, 2014 // 0 Comments

Apologizing to their users, yesterday Flickr killed the controversial (but entirely legal) program which let you buy wall art printed with any appropriately licensed creative commons image from the [Read More ...]

Where Yahoo went wrong when they decided to sell prints of CC-Licensed Flickr images

30 November, 2014 // 7 Comments

WSJ reported last week that Yahoo's latest move to increase its revenues was pissing off Flickr users: More than 300 million publicly shared Flickr images use Creative Commons licenses, making it [Read More ...]

OpenStax to Release 10 New Open Source Textbooks by 2017

26 August, 2014 // 0 Comments

Rice University's open source textbook initiative is looking to save college students even more money on textbooks. OpenStax has announced plans to expand their catalog of CC-licensed textbooks by [Read More ...]

Unglue.it Finishes Ungluing Its First Book

12 September, 2012 // 2 Comments

It’s not exactly a secret that I’ve been somewhat skeptical of Unglue.it’s selections and model for soliciting crowdfunding to unlock various e-book titles into free Creative Commons release. [Read More ...]

Amazon Unglues Unglue.it From Its Payment Processing Services

9 August, 2012 // 2 Comments

This morning as I was getting ready for work, a letter popped into my email from Eric Hellman at Unglue.it, the crowdfunding site operating on a Storytellers-Bowl-style model in which it solicits [Read More ...]

Austria adopted Creative Commons License as default

16 August, 2011 // 1 Comment

The city governments for Vienna, Linz, Salzburg, and Graz made a joint announcement this past week that they, along with the Chancellor's office (the executive branch of the Austrian gov't), had [Read More ...]