Posted on August 4, 2008 - by jono
Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase is born!
I am really excited to announce the very first Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase!
For a long time now we have been shipping a package called example-content with each release of Ubuntu. This package provides a bunch of different pieces of content including audio, video, PDFs, OpenOffice.org documents and more. The idea is that you can use this content to kickstart your new Ubuntu system and see what it can do. example-content has been really useful, but it has been languishing a little recently, and then we had a rather interesting idea…
Why not use example-content as a great way to show off audio and video from free culture artists? It can give artists a platform of millions of Ubuntu users to show off their work and it really excites me because we are applying the Ubuntu ethos to free culture.
The idea is simple:
- Your submission must be either audio or video (we are not accepting documents/images) and no larger than 1MB for the audio and 3MB for the video. The submissions must be made available in either Ogg Vorbis (audio) or Ogg Theora (video). The submissions must be licensed as Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike.
- Upload your submission somewhere online (there are lots of free hosting solutions available such as archive.org). Do not email any of the organisers or judges with your submissions.
- Add your entry to one of the submission tables at http://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuFreeCultureShowcase.
- When the deadline for submissions closes, our panel of judges (Cory Kontros, Luis de Bethencourt, Luke Yelavich, Lydia Pintscher and Tony Whitmore) will pick a shortlist, and the Community Council will then pick the final winners from the shortlist.
The deadline is 4th September 2008 and you can read more about it at http://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuFreeCultureShowcase
This is a great opportunity for artists to get their work seen or heard. Lets make something cool happen. Good luck! 
18 Comments
We'd love to hear yours!
Leave a Reply
Here's your chance to speak.
-
Flickr Photos
Visit My Website
August 4, 2008
Permalink
Very cool! Good luck to all artists joining, may the best win!
But one thing: Isn’t the CC by-sa 3.0 license allowed?
Visit My Website
August 4, 2008
Permalink
Sounds great – I would suggest some nice open templates for openoffice etc to compliment this
Visit My Website
August 5, 2008
Permalink
Two more comments:
I really think some beautiful CC licensed photos/illustrations should be added to the competition!
It a lot more than 3 MB, but I think the newest open movie from Blender would be perfect for the job!
Visit My Website
August 5, 2008
Permalink
An idea: include at least one {insert-audio/video-editing-software} project files and component clips. If it’s about showing users what they can do, why not also give an example of how they can do it?
Visit My Website
August 5, 2008
Permalink
Will you be putting somting from your Severed 5th project in to the hat? I’d love to get some METAL in there:twisted:
I bet it will be some inoffensive classical stuff that gets selected or maybe some rubbish elevator music type crap in the end
Visit My Website
August 5, 2008
Permalink
The restriction on no documents/images seems a little severe. I understand that you don’t want everyone submitting their unpublished novel or holiday snaps, but a few simple rules would filter out things like that.
A movie or audio file might be a great example of what can be made, but not how to make it. I’d rather have a good image as an XCF or SVG file, with well labelled layers and an associated document describing the development process – give people not only the end result, but the intermediate data needed to modify and play with it themselves.
Similarly, there’s a world of difference between a well-structured ODT file (using styles) and the sort of word processing that most people do (using inline formatting). A good article or piece of prose would make a useful example, whilst an accompanying document could act as a simple tutorial showing how changes to styles affects the original.
For some items it would be impractical to supply all of the intermediate data on the CD, but making these files available for download should, perhaps, be part of the requirements (or at least make it more likely that the file will be included). A Vorbis file is great – but the ability to download all the constituent samples, plus a suitable midi file and a brief tutorial from the composer is even more useful.
Don’t just use example-content to “kickstart your new Ubuntu system and see what it can do” – use it as an opportunity to show people how to do it as well.
Visit My Website
August 5, 2008
Permalink
Excellent Idea! I will spread the word as much as I can.
Hopefully, you’ll make a contest out of this for every release. After a few new releases the word should be spread out to most musicians, and who wouldn’t want a 8 million audience
So besides it’s great for Free Culture – it’s also very good publicity
Visit My Website
August 5, 2008
Permalink
I really think we should put some Nine Inch Nails stuff in there. Both the Ghosts I–IV and The Slip albums have been released under the Creative Commons attribution-noncommercial share alike and Trent has been very vocal in saying he supports this licence. Why ignore the opportunity to support the worlds biggest artist currently supporting CC.
Visit My Website
August 5, 2008
Permalink
Cool – but must be share alike? CC-BY should also be an option I would think (should support free and more free
)
Visit My Website
August 5, 2008
Permalink
Looks nice, but not promising when you look at the state of the planned Ubuntu 8.10 DevianArt competition (nothing’s been updated, time is ticking, nobody knows what’s going on).
Visit My Website
November 17, 2008
Permalink
As welcome as flowers in May
Visit My Website
November 21, 2008
Permalink
I can’t think of anything worse after a night of drinking than waking up next to someone and not being able to remember their name, or how you met, or why they’re dead. (Laura Kightlinger)