Open content
From Schoolforge-UK
The goal of Schoolforge-UK is to develop educational resources that are freely available in electronic formats. We believe that the principles of Free, Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) offer the most effective way for the resources on this site to be developed and made available.
The license we use grants free access to the content of this web site, in the same sense as free software is licensed freely. That is to say, Schoolforge-UK content can be copied, modified, and redistributed so long as the new version grants the same freedoms to others and acknowledges the authors of the Schoolforge-UK materials used (a direct link back to the web page satisfies our author credit requirement). Schoolforge-UK materials therefore will remain free forever and can be used by anybody subject to certain restrictions, most of which serve to ensure that freedom.
To fulfill the above goals, the text contained in Schoolforge-UK is licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike licence.
It is no good having open content if it can't be accessed by open applications. The Government claims to be a champion of open standards. Here is a petition requesting government to respect open standards. “We call on the UK government to: (1) Procure only information technology that implements free and open standards; (2) Deliver e-government services based exclusively on free and open standards; (3) Use only free and open digital standards in their own activities. as adopted and proclaimed by the founders of the Digital Standards Organization in The Hague on 21 May 2008.”
Here is the response. "The UK Government champions open standards and interoperability through its eGovernment Interoperability Framework Version 6.0, 30th April 2004 (eGIF) and through the publication of its Open Source Software Policy which is available in the document “Open Source Software, Use within UK Government, Version 2.0, 28 October 2004”.
Here are some government web sites that have serious problems with Firefox 3.0 the most widely used open source browser that conforms to W3C standards. One would have though that if government rhetoric is to be believed, as a minimum, all sites would be thoroughly tested with this browser. Rhetoric is one thing reality it seems another.
