OKF Material

= OKF Material =

About Blurb in Plain Text From
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 * 1) About the Open Knowledge Foundation

The Open Knowledge Foundation was founded in 2004 with the simple aim of promoting (and protecting) open knowledge in the belief that more open approaches to the production and distribution of knowledge have far-reaching social and commercial benefits.


 * 1) What is Open Knowledge?

Simply put: it is knowledge that is open! To be more specific, by knowledge we mean any kind of content, information or data: genes to geodata, sonnets to statistics. By 'open' knowledge we mean knowledge which anyone is free to use, re-use and redistribute without legal, social or technological restriction [1]. For more details and a really precise explanation of what this means see the Open Knowledge Definition [2].

[1]: http://www.okfn.org/three_meanings_of_open/ [2]: http://www.opendefinition.org/


 * 1) What We Do

The Foundation exists to promote open knowledge in all ways possible. Central to this is being an open and participatory community and our allied role as a hub and partner for existing open knowledge networks. Beyond this we work specifically to:

* Promote the idea of open knowledge, both what it is [1], and why is it a good idea. * Campaign at the national and international level on open knowledge issues. * Run 'Open Knowledge' events, for example forums [3] and OKCON [4]. * Develop tools that help us and help others develop open knowledge, such as KForge [5] and the Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network [6] * Provide infrastructure, and potentially a home, for open knowledge projects, communities and resources. See, for example, the KnowledgeForge service [7].

Running through all of our activities is a strong emphasis on decentralized collaboration. In particular, our primary aim is to help others develop open knowledge rather than doing it ourselves. Of course, that doesn't mean we don't develop specific projects (for example Open Shakespeare) but we believe that the future lies in collaboration between a multitude of different groups and that no one group or organisation can, or should try to, "do it all".

[3]: http://www.okfn.org/okforums/ [4]: http://www.okfn.org/okcon/ [5]: http://www.kforgeproject.com/ [6]: http://www.ckan.net/ [7]: http://www.knowledgeforge.net/


 * 1) More information

You can find out more about what we do on our website:

http://www.okfn.org/

In particular, you might want to check out our blog:

http://blog.okfn.org/

And the list of our projects:

http://www.okfn.org/projects/