opencontentlawyer.com

I recently joined the board of the Open Knowledge Foundation, which is five years old this month. Here is a recent email from fellow OKF boardmember Rufus Pollock, which I completely echo. Please consider supporting us either financially or by just getting involved in OKF activities.

—-

This month the Open Knowledge Foundation is five years old. Over those last five years we’ve done much to promote open access to information — from sonnets to stats, genes to geodata — not only in the form of
specific projects like Open Shakespeare and Public Domain Works but also in the creation of tools such as KnowledgeForge and the
Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network, standards such as the Open Knowledge Definition, and events such as OKCon, designed to benefit the wider open knowledge community. (To find out more about what we’ve been up to in the last year, read our latest annual report [1]).

While we have achieved a lot, we believe we can do much, much more. We are therefore reaching out to our community and asking you to help us take our vision further.

Our aim: at least a 100 supporters committed to making regular, ongoing donations of £5 (EUR 6, $7.50) or more a month.

These funds will be essential in expanding and sustaining our work by allowing us to invest in infrastructure and employ modest central support. To pledge yourself as one of those supporters all you need to do is take 30 seconds to sign up to our “100 supporters” pledge at:

http://www.pledgebank.org/support-okfn/

(You also can act on the pledge right now if you wish, just visit:
http://www.okfn.org/support/)

We will always be a not-for-profit organization, built on the work of passionate volunteers. But with these additional funds, we believe we can make our efforts go much, much further. Please consider becoming a supporter and help us take our work forward.

Regards,

Rufus Pollock
Board Member, Open Knowledge Foundation

[1]:http://www.okfn.org/board/reports/2009/

### What will the money be used for?

These funds will be essential in expanding and sustaining our work by:

1. Allowing us to employ modest central support to:
 * Co-ordinate voluntary work
 * Apply for substantial grant funding for specific projects
 * Put on special events

2. Allowing us to upgrade and maintain our technical infrastructure
(servers etc)

### What have you achieved over the last 5 years?

Among other things: we’ve started projects that have allowed Shakespeare and Milton to enjoy a rebirth in the digital public
domain, begun the huge task of cataloging public domain sound recordings, and opened a raft of economic and historical material.

We’ve also developed tools, standards and events which have benefited the wider open knowledge community: Knowledgeforge stores the parliamentary data for theyworkforyou and publicwhip, the Open Knowledge Definition provides a standard for what “openness” is, Open Data Commons is developing the data license to be used by Open Street Map, and our workshops and annual Open Knowledge Conference (OKCon) bring together individuals and organizations from across the open knowledge spectrum.

More information can be found in:

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

And in our annual reports available from: http://www.okfn.org/board/