also sent to info arond fsf.org ---

Hello,

My name is Bogdan Bivolaru (surname Bogdan). I write for some time to support free software, but some of my ideas seemed to be underpromoted. So I thought why should these ideas lie lonely on my websites/blogs - I should offer them to the wider world, so that these ideas get promoted, gain traction and who knows? maybe one of them turns into a real project. So here I publish them, to the home of the free software definition and the home of free software concept and the home of the GNU Project.

In this message I present my ideas on collaboration between non-programmers in the land of freedom and in the new software economy.

I have so far written several articles/ideas on promoting Free Software using Free culture. I'll attempt to summary these ideas here and provide links for further reading. Please do send comments and questions (also send negative comments).

What I believe Free Culture needs to grow:

* free software tools for sharing artwork and their integration into creational tools - GIMP, OpenOffice, Blender, Audacity need versioning capabilities; * a tool to find others work according to different criteria - free software "coders" have http://krugle.org, artists need something similar to the proprietary "Goo gle" Image Labeler - or semantic search engine for artwork, such as http://nepomuk.semanticdesktop.org/; * making artwork files formats more modular so that artists can work in parallel (autonomously) of each other; * lots of marketing targeted to artists.

I believe there is empirical evidence that people appreciate freedom as long as they experience it directly. Likewise, I believe artists will best experience freedom in software not by filing bugs and writing documentation, but by submitting their own work to a common pool of artwork an see it being improved by others who either have more time or are more experienced.

I see these two concepts, free software and free culture, as symbiotic because:

* Free software is an enabler for Free Culture (free culture is impossible in the absence of free software); * Free Culture creates test cases that can be used to promote Free Software (allows us to say "look what can be done with Free Software!"); * Free Culture enlarges our user base with active, participative users; * Free Cultural works can be included (embedded) in Free software - for icons, themes, examples.

What else means promoting Free Software through Free Culture? It means we need to start advertising the collaboration tools in our software. We have to enable and encourage artists to share their work with other artists and with the world - just as our programmers do. Go out there and tell student/young artists how they can work more efficient as a collective. Show them examples of "free cultural projects' that are successful and which they can contribute to. Examples include:

1. Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page 2. Students for Free Culture http://freeculture.org/ 3. Mutopia Project - sharing free music sheets http://www.mutopiaproject.org/ 4. Project Gutenberg, the first producer of free electronic books http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

I consider as part of the free culture any reproducible work:

* accounting exercises for teaching in schools; * office templates (there are already several office templates projects); * 2D images; * 3D models with textures; * psychology questionares; * music sheets.

Should we have a community that goes by the principles of "free software" for each or most fields of human activity, we shall achieve far greater success than what we got by now.

A sizable, realistic objective for free culture: add versioning support to the "The Blender 3D Model Repository" http://e2-productions.com/repository/modules/PDdownloads/

Last, but not the least I should remark that supporting free culture does not deny proprietary culture artists to use our free software tools - that's why they are free software, so that one can use them for any purpose they wish.

Other thoughts of mine on this matter:

* Promoting Free software [kind of

agressive]https://www.fsfe.org/en/fellows/vadania/my_ideas_on_how_to_improve_free_soft...

* Non software contributors in Free Society

https://www.fsfe.org/en/fellows/vadania/my_ideas_on_how_to_improve_free_soft...

* Promoting Linux as a tool for a participative community

https://www.fsfe.org/en/fellows/vadania/my_ideas_on_how_to_improve_free_soft...

* Workspace for Colaborative Development in Different Domains http://thetuxproject.com/node/263

* Freedomware calls for artists, end users http://thetuxproject.com/node/286

All materials are CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted. Please do contact me if you find any material that is not under a free license.