Free Knowledge Institute is launched
January 16th, 2008
Today the Free Knowledge Institute is officially launched in the Netherlands:
The Free Knowledge Institute (FKI) is a non-profit organisation that fosters the free exchange of knowledge in all areas of society. Inspired by the Free Software movement, the FKI promotes freedom of use, modification, copying and distribution of knowledge in four different but highly related fields: education, technology, culture and science.
From their press release:
The Free Knowledge Institute (www.freeknowledge.eu) is an initiative from three Amsterdam-based professionals who currently work for Internet Society Netherlands. In the past years the association coordinated the large-scale EU-project SELF which embraced the same objectives. The need to share knowledge freely has become so important that the institute now turns into an independent organisation.
“More and more governments realise the benefits of free knowledge and free information technology”, says Wouter Tebbens, the president of the new institute. The Free Knowledge Institute intends to be a knowledge partner helping to show the way in available free knowledge and technology. “That way, we can elaborate on the existing pool of free knowledge and free software, which is growing enourmously. Look at projects such as Wikipedia, Linux, and the internet itself”, Tebbens states. “Why reinvent the wheel yet again?”
Its main lines of activity are Free Knowledge in technology, education, culture and science. Free Knowledge in education focuses on the production and dissemination of free educational materials; Free Knowledge in IT mainly refers to free software, open standards and open hardware; Free Knowledge in culture includes open content; and Free Knowledge in science includes open access and anti-privatisation of scientific knowledge.
We’ve certainly got a lot in common and having already been in touch with Hinde ten Berge, vice-president of the FKI, we hope to find ways to work together in the future.
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February 12th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
[...] Die Liste der Organisationen im Bereich Freies Wissen ist fast ein Jahr alt; statt einer aktualisierten Version (zuletzt ist das niederländische Free Knowledge Institute Mitte Januar hinzugekommen) möchte ich nochmal gesondert auf die Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF) hinweisen. Die in Großbritannien beheimatete Organisation setzt sich wie die Wikimedia Foundation und ihre Chapter für Freies Wissen ein. Während bei Wikimedia allerdings der Schwerpunkt auf enzyklopädischem Wissen und damit in Zusammenhang stehenden Bildern, Tondokumenten, Sachbüchern, Nachrichten, Zitaten, Quellen etc. steht und vor allem Wikis zu Einsatz kommen, legt die Open Knowledge Foundation den Schwerpunkt auf Daten und Informationen. Darunter fallen wie in der Open Knowledge Definition der OKF genannt wird “jegliche Art von Daten, ob naturwissenschaftlich, historisch, geographisch [oder auch] Administrative und Regierungsinformationen”. [...]