A Truly Free, Libre and Open Gift Guide - First Notes

I've been disappointed by the gift guides provided by Creative Commons and opensource.com. Many of the products that they promoted as 'open source' or 'open' are not – they are under proprietary licences or even all rights reserved! I thought I'd promote some of the products that I treasure that are, at least in part, free, libre and open.

 To make it into this series, a major part of the product must be under a free, libre and open licence. For example, Conquering Corsairs – in which the art is Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike qualifies, though the game rules are CC Attribution-NonCommercial – qualifies. Cards against Humanity – CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike in its entirety – does not.

Anima Prime from Berengad Games is a fast-paced tabletop roleplaying game inspired by manga and anime. An art-free, gratis PDF of the game is available under CC BY-SA; the proprietary illustrated PDF and hardcopy cost $10 and $20 respectively. http://www.animaprimerpg.com/main/

Donjon from CRN Games is a fantasy dungeoncrawl tabletop roleplaying game in which the players have significant narrative control. An art-free, gratis wiki of the game is available under CC BY-SA; the proprietary illustrated PDF costs $9. http://fossilbank.wikidot.com/work:donjon

The Shadow of Yesterday from CRN Games is a pioneering tabletop roleplaying game in which there are no monsters – only people. An art-free, gratis wiki of the game is available under CC BY-SA; the proprietary illustrated PDF costs $15. http://fossilbank.wikidot.com/work:shadow-of-yesterday

Beast Hunters from Berengad Games is a tabletop roleplaying game where tattooed hunters of beasts use their fiendish blood for sorcery. An art-free, gratis wiki of the game is available under CC BY-SA; the proprietary illustrated PDF costs $10. http://fossilbank.wikidot.com/work:beast-hunters

Sita Sings the Blues Merchandise from Nina Paley should be free, libre and open provided it faithfully reproduces the movie (which is CC0 licensed). Offerings include silk pocket squares ($45), the DVD of Sita Sings the Blues ($20; note the music is proprietary), a shirt of Shiva ($20), a lovely peacock phonograph charm ($12 or 2 for $20) and a Sita pin ($12). http://questioncopyright.com/sita.html

The Public Domain Review Merchandise from the Open Knowledge Foundation should be free, libre and open; the site specifies that 'articles' are CC BY-SA licensed which hopefully covers the images in the shop too. Offerings include a poster of 24 of the most striking icons from Royal Book of Crests of Great Britain and Ireland, Dominion of Canada, India and Australasia and a print of the Blue Grotto (prices seem to be around $20). http://publicdomainreview.org/store/posters-and-prints/

Creative Commons has a number of give-aways based on donation levels: a pack of Team Open cards at $25, plus a shirt at $75 or a cap at $100, or plus both shirt and cap at $250. The Team Open illustrations are CC0; the text and card designs are CC BY (the illustrations can be downloaded gratis; the text and card designs will be able to be downloaded gratis soon). https://donate.creativecommons.org/

Group Works is a deck of cards and accompanying instructions for 'bringing life to meetings and other gatherings'. The deck is available for $25; the rules and cards can also be downloaded as gratis PDFs. CC BY-SA. http://groupworksdeck.org/

Producing Open Source Software is a book about 'the human side of open source development'. Gratis HTML, EPUB and PDF available (CC BY-SA) as well as hardcopy from O'Reilly Media (ebook $20, print $25). A second edition of this book is coming next year. http://producingoss.com/

Free as in Freedom is the biography of Richard Stallman, by Sam Williams. Gratis HTML available (GNU FDL), or ebook ($18), or hardcopy ($23). Stallman has since unilaterally revised the book. http://oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/, http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596002879.do

Fantastique Unfettered is only available in hardcopy (making it non-free, libre and open by some definitions), but is solidly licensed as CC BY-SA. Magazines of short stories, interviews, artworks, poems, etc., that sell for around $10 from a variety of merchants. http://fantastique-unfettered.blogspot.com.au/p/fu-in-print.html

It's a Jetson's World is a book that celebrates digital capitalism while condemning recalcitrant government. CC BY licence. Gratis ebooks and PDFs; $4 hardcopies. http://mises.org/document/6528/Its-a-Jetsons-World-Private-Miracles-and-Public-Crimes

FREE BEER is a book containing materials from the speakers at FSCONS 2008. CC BY-SA. Gratis ebook; $15 hardcopy. http://freebeer.fscons.org/

Blender DVDs include DVDs of the Blender movies (Sintel, Tears of Steel, Big Buck Bunny for €34, €27, €20), DVD training (~€25) and pre-orders for Caminandes 2 (€28). All CC BY (the movies are available gratis as well). http://www.blender3d.org/e-shop/default_dvds.php

Libre Graphics Magazine is a CC BY-SA licensed magazine about programs like Inkscape and GIMP. Gratis PDFs and $12-$16 hardcopies. http://libregraphicsmag.com/

Josh Woodward no longer sells physical albums, but you can buy his music (FLAC and MP3 format) for $1 a song or his entire discography for $40. You can also support him on Patreon, paying $1 or more per song that Woodward creates. http://www.joshwoodward.com/#/; http://www.patreon.com/joshwoodward

Conquering Corsairs is a deckbuilding card game, the rules of which are CC BY-NC but the art of which is CC BY-SA. Art, rules and cards are available as gratis downloads; the game is also available print-on-demand for $35. (https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/conquering-corsairs)

Stick's Masterpiece is a fun children's book about a girl who creates a masterpiece from small and simple things. CC BY-SA. Hardcopy for $13 from Amazon; gratis PDF. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0989715000/

Rafu is creating roleplaying games under libre licences and you can help fund him on Patreon. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0989715000/

The Foundation for an Open Source City is a book by Jason Hibbets, discussing five elements of an open source city with Raleigh, North Carolina, as an example. CC BY-SA. EPUB $5, hardcopy $12. http://theopensourcecity.com/

Subaqueous USB Splash Drive is a collection of Subaqueous discography, remix stems, videos describing his artistic process, and so on. The samples, stems and instruments are CC BY-SA; I'm not sure what percentage of the collection they are. $75. http://www.subaqueousmusic.com/live-packs-and-store/usb-splash-drive

Dungeon World is a well-received dungeoncrawling tabletop roleplaying game. The text is CC BY licensed; the art is proprietary. A few gratis HTML versions are available; PDF for $10; hardcopy and PDF for $25. http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/product.php?productid=18774&cat=0&featured=Y

Red Box Vancouver has a number of Dungeon World supplements, most of which have CC BY-SA licensed text (but not art or layout). http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse.php?manufacturers_id=4483

Written on December 6, 2013