Clearware.org launches

This project really tickles my fancy.

Clearware.org aims to make End User License Agreements (EULAs) easy to read for people like you and I, not just the lawyers who write them. Clearware.org specifies a style of summary very similar to a Creative Commons deed that highlights the important points of the license so you can take it all in at a glance.

In addition, and this is the part that I think is the coolest, Clearware.org specifies how to mark up a license as an RDF document so that the license can be understood by third party programs. This sort of semantic markup would eventually allow users search for software based on licensing terms!

We’re very happy to host this innovative new project!

Welcome iCommons

ibiblio has recently added a very cool new collection: iCommons, a new initiative incubated by Creative Commons that aims to “develop a united global commons front.”

Yesterday, Lawrence Lessig blogged a little more about the ambitious aim of the iCommons project, which “reaches far beyond the infrastructure that CC is building… to bring together a wide range of people in addition the CC crowd – including Wikipedians, Free Software sorts, the Free Culture kids, A2K heroes, Open Access advocates, and others”.

The iCommons crew has been very nice to work with. We’re very happy to have the opportunity to contribute to their effort.

New Collection: Jewish Sparks

Title: Jewish Sparks

URL: http://www.jewishsparks.net

Description:
Jewish Sparks is an educational site which contains lectures and talks from Jewish Scholars and leaders. Part of its collection includes material from the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies (UNC-Chapel Hill).

New Collection: Carolinasoul.org

Local funk collector Jason Perlmutter recently launched Carolinasoul.org, and we couldn’t be more excited. Mr. Perlmutter has created an invaluable resource, documenting the musical legacy of Soul and Funk artists here in the Carolinas.

Check it out!

New Collection: Triangle NC IAF

Triangle NC IAF is a broad based, interfaith and ecumenical organization that uses the model of leadership development and community organizing of the IAF (Industrial Areas Foundation). Please visit the multimedia Durham CAN website – a member of Triangle NC AIF

Link: Triangle NC IAF

New Collection: Guruguha

Guruguha!

Guruguha is Musical Wisdom.

Guruguha is at http://ibiblio.org/guruguha.

Guruguha!

Music Business Strictly For the Birds

I’ve been working on a new blog-based website for ex-Byrds lead Roger McGuinn (http://tinyurl.com/amq46) and in the process have read a bit about the band’s history. I’ve been struck by how influential Roger McGuinn’s guitar sound has been, particularly on early (re: seminal) R.E.M. I had never made that connection before until I listened last evening for the first time in a couple of decades to the classic “Eight Miles High.” (I imagine the high-flying Byrds were smoking pot for medicinal purposes only.) Anyway, I came across a fascinating website documenting a Frontline television series last year on the death of the music industry that contained an interview with ex-Byrd David Crosby. (See Paul Jones’ blog on the newly formed connection between ibiblio and Frontline at http://tinyurl.com/9w2pw) I suppose the Crosby interview is no longer news, and I also imagine there are many bitter overweight sixties rejects complaining about Britney Spears’ tits, but, heck, the interview is compelling. Crosby’s in the “been there, done that” seat, and for that alone, it’s a valuable reflection on the horrors that occur when big biz and art collide (a hint: roadkill). Props to Crosby. The interview can be found at http://tinyurl.com/2vv5e.

New Collection: Textile Heritage Museum

URL: http://www.textileheritagemuseum.org

Description:
The Textile Heritage Museum is located in the Company Store and Office Building in the Glencoe Mill Village. The building was purchased for the museum in February 2004 and is an ongoing restoration project as well as a museum highlighting the textile history of Alamance County. It features history and machinery of the textile industry from the cottage industry to the present, the family labor system, life in the mill villages, and a company store exhibit. The currently operating textile mills of Alamance County will be featured in a special room with
their history and products on display.

New Collections

A whole lot of people responded to our call to add collections to our collection index. Thank you so much! Here’s a blog post that will help you increase your PageRank

Title: TibetWrites

URL: http://www.tibetwrites.org

Description:
A place for Tibetan literature in Tibet and outside Tibet. Collections of articles, opinions, poetry, written by Tibetans.

Title: Gamelan Nyai Saraswati

URL: http://www.ibiblio.org/gamelan

Description:
Gamelan Nyai Saraswati is a Central Javanese Gamelan located at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. This gamelan, originating from the island of Java in Indonesia, is played by up to about 20 musicians. The group performs regularly in the area, and performances include traditional Javanese repertoire as well as contemporary compositions. Audio files from several performances are archived on this site, as well as educational materials on the gamelan and its various component instruments.

Title: UNC Student Television

URL: http://www.uncstv.org

Title: Suki’s real

URL: http://www.ibiblio.org/suki/real.html

Title: Audio Activism

URL: http://www.audioactivism.org

Description:
Audio Activism is a independently produced spoken word "radio show" and weblog with subject content focusing on media activism. Weekly mp3s are released using the podcasting medium. The main goal is to educate and encourage people about making their own media.

Title: Graphics Hardware Conference Archives

URL: http://www.graphicshardware.org

Description:
Archives (presentations and talks) from the annual Eurographics/SIGGRAPH Graphics Hardware conference.

Title: Section 27 and Public Domain Books Page

URL: http://www.ibiblio.org/ahkitj/section27/

Title: Timeless Truths Free Online Library

URL: http://library.timelesstruths.org

Title: sdelta Public Patch Repository

URL: http://ibiblio.org/sdelta

Description:
The sdelta PPR provides on demand patch generation for source tarballs. For example boxes upgrading to from mozilla 1.7.5 to mozilla 1.7.6 can download an upgrade patch instead of a full compressed source tarball.
30M for mozilla-1.7.6.tar.bz2 or
410K for mozilla-source-1.7.5.tar-mozilla-source-1.7.6.tar.sd.bz2
Obviously the tiny patches which are generated once and downloaded by many boxes conserve an incredible amount of time, bandwidth, and bottlenecking of the Internet. The client program runs on Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris of any endian architecture. This collection is constantly being created and freely accessible.

Title: Solaris Package Archive

URL: http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/packages/solaris/sparc/

Description:
One of the best (and first) collections of Solaris software on the internet. This site provides administrators with integrated, properly configured bundles of software which they can add to their machines. This can save them days of work, per machine. The site is extremely popular and very well known in the Sun community.

Title: Baha’i Page at ibiblio

URL: http://www.ibiblio.org/Bahai

Title: UNC Ice Hockey Sports Club

URL: http://www.unchockey.com

Description:
Ice Hockey Sports Club Team at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill

Title: A Byte of Python

URL: http://www.ibiblio.org/g2swap/byteofpython/read/

Description:
A beginner’s book on Python.

New Collection: Gamelan Nyai Saraswati

http://www.ibiblio.org/gamelan

Gamelan Nyai Saraswati is a Central Javanese Gamelan located at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. This gamelan, originating from the island of Java in Indonesia, is played by up to about 20 musicians. The group performs regularly in the area, and performances include traditional Javanese repertoire as well as contemporary compositions. Audio files from several performances are archived on this site, as well as educational materials on the gamelan and its various component instruments.

New Collection: Ghana Land Law

Ghana Land Law

Cases in Ghanaian Land Law. These are full-text legal decisions in the real property law of Ghana. The oldest decisions are from the British colonial courts of the latter 19th century: decisions range through the present day. Many of these decisions are either landmark cases or representative of major principles of the real property law of Ghana. Most are from the area of the customary land law of Ghana, although there are decisions relating to statutory areas, such as land title registration, as well.

Most cases contain numerous typographical errors, sometimes quite serious, which are being fixed as time allows. It is hoped that they will be useful to those interested in the subject, and to help preserve information in older books which can be difficult to find. Due to the number of typos, they are likely not suitable for lawyers who need to extract quotes for briefs, etc.

New Collection: Tibet Writes

An irony – and perhaps also a triumph – of China imposing its language on Tibet is that today a Tibetan literary elite are authoring highly acclaimed books in Chinese. The woman writer and poet, Woeser, is at the forefront of this New Literary Movement. Having studied Chinese literature in the Chinese Department of South-West Nationalities Institute, Chengdu, and worked as an editor with the Lhasa-based Chinese language journal, Tibetan Literature, Woeser has the education, background and talent to be one of the bright stars of China’s ‘New Tibet.’ Instead she is now unemployed, living in self-exile in Beijing.

http://www.tibetwrites.org – Where Tibet Writes

New Collection: Graybeard’s Blender Tutorials

http://www.ibiblio.org/bvidtute/

Welcome to GreyBeard’s Blender tutorials! The video tutorials you find on this site are my way of giving back to the Blender community and thanking them for the wonderful work they have done in developing the open source application Blender. I would also like to express my gratitude to the folks at ibiblio.org for making this possible by hosting this site.
What is Blender?

The Blender web site describes Blender as an integrated 3D graphics creation suite allowing modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, realtime interactive 3D and game creation and playback with cross-platform compatibility. Blender is licensed under the GPL and is available at www.blender3d.org for Windows, Linux, OSX, Solaris, Irix and FreeBSD.

New Collection: Doctor Fun updates mailing list information

Don’t have time to go to ibiblio.org every day to see if David Farley’s Dr Fun home page has changed? All going to plan, this mailing list will come to you.

Link:
http://www.ibiblio.org/ahkitj/listinfo-dr-fun-changes.html

New Collection: Ethnojournalism

The art of Ethnography is about expressing the meeting of two cultures. The art of Journalism is about giving a sense of urgency to that meeting. Our mission is three fold: to educate the public about multimedia, to create multimedia documentaries in cooperation with NGO’s and grassroots organizations as a means to develop intercultural/social/political communication and to offer a creative way to bridge the digital divide through multimedia empowerment.

http://www.ibiblio.org/ethnojournalism/

New Collection: Wycliffe’s Bible

In the bigynnyng God made of nouyt heuene and erthe.
Forsothe the erthe was idel and voide,
and derknessis weren on the face of depthe;
and the Spiryt of the Lord was borun on the watris.
And God seide, Liyt be maad, and liyt was maad.

Originally Translated from Latin into Middle English
by John Wycliffe and John Purvey, in the 14th Century.

This site presents a modernized version by Terence P. Noble (editor and publisher).

New Collections: O.305 François Musin, The Last of Her Kind

The O.305 François Musin is the last of her kind… She was built in 1948 at the shipyard Beliard in Ostend. During her short career, she became a kind of a legend. This trawler had once a woman dressed as man aboard, a fire destroyed the bridge just before she left Ostend bound for Africa, ….

Since 1986 the vessel had been waiting in a dock, nearly abandoned until in 1999 she was bought by a shiplover.

http://www.ibiblio.org/musin/

Zaurus Users becomes The Open Embedded Software Foundation

The Zaurus Users Group has broadened its focus to all embedded Linux systems and has become the Open Embedded Software Group (OESG) on ibiblio. The old ZaurusUsersGroup.com will soon become a .org when it moves here.

Embedded Linux Software Index

The Zaurus Software Index has become the Embedded Linux Software Index (hosted here on ibiblio).

For more details, see the new ibiblio-hosted sites, the good old Zaurus Users Group site, and Linux News.

Welcome to ibiblio.