Tribute to openeers
Image: Stefano Mortellaro/Flickr
We dedicate this list to the pioneers and engineers of openability, aka to the openeers.
An openeer is a person or group of unique influence to open philosophy and information sharing, and that has freed ideas, creative works, designs, or inventions.
They sowed seeds advancing the open universe:
Benjamin Franklin
An entrepreneur's refusal to patent inventions he freed, generously, for the public good
Donated his library collection to help restore the Library of Congress
American Library Association
Providing and extending information, free of censorship, as a public service internationally
Invented for universal reach instead of limiting abundance obsessively
H.P. Lovecraft
Shared freely among other writers his Mythos of Cthulhu horrors
A database of public domain books in a reliably open format and made freely available
Richard Stallman
Groundbreaking and ongoing work on freeing software
Helped unleash the internet and working to keep it open
Human Genome Project
Freed its discoveries to humanity before anybody could deny open access to them
He introduced Linux and has significantly extended/influenced the open-source movement
Continual work on open standards to accelerate and strengthen the internet globally
Preserving a history of the internet which current and future generations can browse
Working toward an open internet, driving open standards, and freeing its own technology
Creative Commons
A toolset anyone can use to legally build upon, remix, and share creative works
Creating a vast, open repository of knowledge that anyone can freely share and remix
Empowering children in poverty globally, with an openable computer of durability and connectivity
Openable 3D printer increasingly enables people to print material goods at home
Mentoring students who develop and improve open source projects
Hires talent to create open 3D media and freely shares access to its 3D technology
Creating an open alternative to Google Books
Sets music free and hired an orchestra in order to free classical music masterpieces
Freeing research to labs led to making cancer "forget" that it's cancer
Developing an open source car for commercial production that others may freely copy
Developing open tech to enable rapid prototyping of electronic devices
Its open, do-it-yourself, modular toolset that enables people globally to build small, sustainable civilizations