A Free and Open World

Today I read a question in an OOo mailing list. It was about this:

"OpenOffice.org is free. Do you use advertising like most free things that causes tons of popup ads?"

And the answer of course is that there is no advertising and no annoying popup ads. You don't need to submit your mail address to some unknown people who promise to use it wisely, and you will not get a customized home page anywhere that tracks your Web habits.

How comes?

Is it possible that there exists a total different parallel world, free from adverts that try to sell something to you? A world without any monetary greed, and without commercial exploitation?

Yes, such a world exists. And you can be a part of it.

Here are some links taken randomly from my bookmark list (and I'm quite sure that the world of humanity is much bigger than the hyperlinked part of the Web):

• Software: http://www.sourceforge.net - find more than 140.000 projects that are offered for free and that invite you to participate and share

• Information: http://www.wikipedia.org - find what other people know about our world that they want to share, and contribute your own findings in an organized way

• Creativity: http://creativecommons.org/ - find musicians, movie makers, book authors, who care more for distributing their art than for getting rich fast, and give them a hug by paying them with your attention (or more)

• Responsibility: http://www.rightlivelihood.org/recip.htm - ask any one of the laureates how you can help, or just read what they achieved and discuss this with your friends

• Working, money, health, religion: well, on some topics the common "truths" about what is the right way of living and what is wrong are really strong. Just giving any one link may lead to big trouble with some people. Instead of giving a link, I'll ask you to watch the movies Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi.

So what has this to do with OpenOffice.org? It is a place where your contribution does matter. You can help to improve the project. Thousands already do this, every day, right now, all over the world.

Very small steps to global world peace, but might be important first steps in your life. There is a world where popup ads are not important at all. A world where your work really matters. Open Source is one part of that great world.