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Advocacy

This is an archive of essays and articles written and published by Open Siddur Project contributors on the significance of the open-source strategies it employs to share content and facilitate collaboration within the project and partnership among other projects in Open-source Judaism.

Resources filtered by TAG: “free culture” (clear filter)

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SHARE WHAT YOU LOVE ♡ A Decision Tree for Choosing Free-Culture Compatible Open Content Licenses for Cultural & Technological Work

Since we all live under the current terms of each of our respective nation’s copyright laws, simply making something available or accessible over the Internet doesn’t make it free under copyright for others to use and improve upon. That’s why open content licenses exist: to abrogate the restrictions imposed by copyright law. We rely upon these open content licenses here at the Open Siddur Project. . . .

Categories: Advocacy

Tags: copyleft, free culture, free libre, open content, open-source

Contributor(s): Aharon N. Varady

A Tale of Two Codexes: The Aleppo and Leningrad Codex

Given that more than 50% of the Siddur is comprised of text from the תנ׳׳ך (TaNaKh) any project that seeks to rigorously attribute its sources depends on a critical, digital edition of the Masoretic text of the Hebrew bible. And such is the case for our Open Siddur Project. The entire history of the transmission of such a profoundly important sourcetext illustrates the degree to which we rely on each others most positive intentions to advance our love of the Torah through sharing — regardless of sect, creed, scholarly or theological inspiration. Moving ahead we are supported by each others gifts and by the preserved legacy of our cultural inheritance. . . .

Categories: Advocacy

Tags: free culture

Contributor(s): Aharon N. Varady

The Afikoman Hiding in Plain Sight, a meditation on freedom and roleplaying in re-enacting Judaism’s archetypal Hero’s Journey — by Aharon Varady (Open Siddur 2011)

How good are you playing this amazing, venerable role-playing game called Judaism? Playing your whole life? Grand. So is it fun? Is it worthwhile? Would you recommend it to your friends? No. All right… so why not? Oh. Yeah. Oh… true. Ok, yeah, those are all good reasons. But what if I told you there was a way to play it better. Not everyone will catch on at first, but it should satisfy the most conservative players AND the most innovative. The geeks will love it and it will lower the bar for entry to even the most simple of players. Ok, it does sound too good to be true. But hey, what’s the point of playing the game if you’re not willing to suspend the physics of the familiar and try on a new set of rules. Embrace the illusion. Try on a new reality. Help create a new one, together. I just want players to use their imagination, feel appreciated instead of alienated, and just improve the game for everyone. So what is it? I’ll tell you. . . .

Categories: Advocacy

Tags: creative commons, free culture, Freedom, liberty, Pesaḥ

Contributor(s): Aharon N. Varady

Jewish Content, Free Culture and “Content Compatibility” — by Efraim Feinstein (Open Siddur 2009)

The free culture community has developed mechanisms to make sharing and collaborative development easier. The principles that define works of free culture are:

the freedom to use the work and enjoy the benefits of using it
the freedom to study the work and to apply knowledge acquired from it
the freedom to make and redistribute copies, in whole or in part, of the information or expression
the freedom to make changes and improvements, and to distribute derivative works

Note that these freedoms do not discriminate on the basis of endeavor, and all free culture works allow creation of derivative works and commercial use. . . .

Categories: Advocacy

Tags: free culture, licensing, what is free

Contributor(s): Efraim Feinstein

An Economic Argument for Open Data — by Efraim Feinstein (Open Siddur 2009)

Free, open data prevents the necessity of duplication of effort, which, in turn, prevents the community as a whole from unnecessarily wasteful spending. Particularly for organizations with a social mission, its use is a win for everyone. . . .

Categories: Advocacy

Tags: economics, free culture, open-source, semantic data, what is free

Contributor(s): Efraim Feinstein

Openness, remixability, and free Jewish culture: a response to Russel Neiss — from Efraim Feinstein (Open Siddur 2009)

Advocacy for creative works’ freedom represents a paradigm shift in thought among content creators: In a free culture, a premium is not placed on the material as-such or even the particular rights associated with the material. Instead, it is on the users’ freedom, and it is that freedom that is the prerequisite to large-scale creative engagement with educational material. . . .

Categories: Advocacy

Tags: copyleft, copyright, free culture, what is free

Contributor(s): Efraim Feinstein

Copyright and Commercial Use: the Problem with Creative Commons’ Non-Commercial Use Licenses (Efraim Feinstein, 2010)

This post continues the series of advocacy posts directed at Jewish content creators and aggregators. Other parts of the series discussed the global communal benefit of free primary data resources and issues of copyright license compatibility and the connection between copyright licensing and remixability. While my previous post briefly mentioned the non-free Creative Commons licenses, this post details why you should choose a free culture license. In particular, it urges you to avoid the licenses with the non-commercial-use only (NC) terms. . . .

Categories: Advocacy

Tags: copyleft, creative commons, free culture, licensing, nc, non-commercial, open-source, sharealike, what is free

Contributor(s): Efraim Feinstein

Access, Sharing, and Innovation through Digitization and the Public Domain — by Aharon Varady (Open Siddur 2010)

Cultures, including our own, breathe creativity and exhale innovation. We rely on the creative works bequeathed to us by earlier generations to remain rooted in our cultural identity. Synagogue members and kids in day schools, summer camps, youth orgs, and creative Jews working on their own can all benefit from our educational, cultural, and spiritual institutions cooperating with one another in sharing the bounty of our cultural heritage. As Jews, are we not all collaborating on a grand project of Torah learning, spiritual improvement, and tikkun olam? It’s time our cultural licensing choices reflect these profound intentions. . . .

Categories: Advocacy

Tags: darim online, empowerment, free culture, licensing

Contributor(s): Aharon N. Varady

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The views expressed on this page and in these shared works represents the views of their creator(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Open Siddur Project's developers, its diverse community of volunteer contributors, or its institutional partners.
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If you must dispose of a printed sacred text (one containing Divine Names), please locate the closest genizah (often established by a synagogue) and contact its custodians for further instructions. We also recommend using Morah Yehudis Fishman's Prayer for Adding a Work to the Genizah.

Support this work: The Open Siddur Project is a volunteer-driven, non-profit, non-commercial, non-denominational, non-prescriptive, gratis & libre Open Access archive of contemplative praxes, liturgical readings, and Jewish prayer literature (historic and contemporary, familiar and obscure) composed in every era, region, and language Jews have ever prayed. Our goal is to provide a platform for sharing open-source resources, tools, and content for individuals and communities crafting their own prayerbook (siddur). Through this we hope to empower personal autonomy, preserve customs, and foster creativity in religious culture.

ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." –Psalms 90:17

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