The Fabricatorz recently capped off an exciting and eventful week at the 6th annual Libre Graphics Meeting, in Montreal. The 4-day Conference was packed with developers and users of free software including Inkscape, Scribus, Gimp, Blender, DeviantArt, and many more. Developer Brad Phillips closed out the Day One talks with a guide to making our unique avatars, as well as announcing the Release of Open Clip Art Library 3.0.

As the talks rolled into Day Two, Christopher Adams revealed the highly-anticipated, refreshed Open Font Library, to much adulation.

The hits kept coming through Day Four, when Fabricatorz Founder, Jon Phillips, unveiled the Milkymist video synthesizer, alongside a vision of an open hardware future for LGM.

The Fabricatorz want to send out a big thanks to all involved in organizing and hosting events for this year's Libre Graphics Meeting. More great events and Releases lay ahead, as we look forward to the rest of 2011!

Montreal, May 12, 2011 – Today at the 6th Libre Graphics Meeting 2011 in Montreal, the Open Clip Art Library along with its commercial stewards, the Fabricatorz, have launched the biggest, most featureful version of everyone's favorite public domain library of clip art, a collection that is free to use for any reason.

Lead developer of Open Clip Art Library and Fabricatorz Developer, Brad Phillips said, "This is our biggest release ever! We have fixed loads of bugs, and Fabricatorz have been leading an effort to create a traditional favorites system so all clip art may be rated by any artist. We have been actively working to close bugs and implement feature requests."

Additional features include a new sorting category, displaying on the main page, that takes advantage of the new favorites system by listing clip art according to most popular. There is now enhanced profile management capabilities and also an ability to list links to a user's different profiles. There are 50+ bug fixes on this 3.0 release that make the entire project work smoothly. And, now its easy to generate bitmap images on-demand, thanks to the contribution from user boobaloo from the project.

A major feature added in this release is the batch management action bar. This tool allows for librarians to add or delete clip art searches and tags. For normal artists (users) it allows for the ability to add to and remove clip art from collections. Collections is a feature from the last release so that themed sets of clip art are combined by someone.

As has come to be expected in recent Releases, a brand new Package of themed clip art is out. Open Clip Art Library 3.0's theme is 'Famous People', and the package contains dozens of newly created graphics for all uses, many of which have been contributed by attendees of workshops at LGM 2011.

For all users and services using the Open Clip Art Library, Fabricatorz is a commercial production company that actively adds features to the Open Clip Art Library. Fabricatorz founder, Jon Phillips states, “The Fabricatorz stand ready to add desired features like a Request System, an Artist Donation System, and a Showcase section on the site. For any businesses, services or benefactors that are interested in these features, we want to work with you to realize new features on the project.”

3.0 Highlights

* Favorites system sprinkled throughout the site
* Most popular category on the main page
* Users can add multiple links to their profiles
* Batch management (collections and clipart management)
* 2 active events, famous people, doudou linux logo
* 50+ bug fixes
* Simpler personal information management
* Embed controls for clip art

Downloads

We now provide monthly customized packages related to monthly themes. Please follow the url below to download the latest packages.

http://openclipart.org/packages

About Open Clip Art Library

Since 2004, the Open Clip Art Library (http://www.openclipart.org/) aims to create an archive of user contributed clip art that may be freely used. All graphics submitted to the project are placed into the Public Domain according to the Creative Commons Public Domain Declaration. The site is powered by the Aiki Framework (http://aikiframework.org), a new web framework using the AGPL license. The Open Clip Art Library. Drawing Together.

About Fabricatorz

The Fabricatorz (http://fabricatorz.com) is a “open” production company that makes successful projects from start to finish, including development and community management. We specialize in Free and Open Source Software, Creative Commons technology, growing on-line and off-line communities in San Francisco, China and the Arab World. Our core focus is in developing software using Aiki Framework, hardware using Qi Hardware, and community-building around the philosophies of Sharism.

For More Information

* http://openclipart.org
* http://aikiframework.org
* http://fabricatorz.com

Press Contact
Jon Phillips press@fabricatorz.com
+1.415.830.3884 San Francisco + China

Weeks spent hopping the globe and spreading the word on Open Source Tech have brought the Fabricatorz back into a heavy development cycle. As all of these projects and events evolve, Community updates become vital to those keeping track, and the first week of November promises a month packed with new and exciting projects!

Fabricatorz Developer, Christopher Adams, has been busy promoting Sharism on a global scale. Christopher and other Fabricatorz launched The Sharism Forum, at Get It Louder 2010 in Beijing, where the ideology behind new cultures stressing openness and sharing was featured and promoted.

October 23 brought Fabricatorz (Barry, Bassel, Jon and Christopher) to Doha, where they held an Open Source Workshop at the Digitally Open conference hosted by ICTQatar. The Workshop brought in a maximum capacity crowd of students and professionals eager to learn techniques, histories, and best practices of an emerging and Open digital culture.

October 25 saw even more Sharism love at a Creative Commons Salon in Beirut at Karaj, where Christopher again spent time introducing and presenting. Last week was rounded out with a group Developer/Planning Session at Hackerspace Damascus, where progress on new features for Aiki Framework were focal points.

In related Open Source news, The Open Clip Art Library recently received some contributions from a group of first-time users of it's key development tool: Inkscape. John Haltiwanger led a class where students investigated the possibilities of the tool as an alternative to proprietary systems for creating digital artwork. Some examples from the students are shown above, below and as a part of the heading graphic.

Marije Rooze notes in her blog, after her work in Inkscape:

I like the idea of open source, of community and sharing. In terms of sympathy my head goes to initiatives like Inkscape. But I am also a creature of habit, unwilling to let go of something so good as Illustrator.

Marije's impressions are indicative of the challenges that the Open Source Community has to address in order to move forward and continue cultivating a healthier and more vibrant digital culture. The Fabricatorz are hard at work making this a reality. Stay tuned for more Fabricatorz Business and Open Source cultural happenings.

The Fabricatorz are once again travel-ready as this week picks up steam. Most immediate on the list of events, Get It Louder 2010 is in final prep stages before lifting off in Shanghai. This year's exhibition, a popular platform for new and upcoming artists, is themed around Sharism. As such, a Sharism Forum, coordinated and moderated by members of Fabricatorz will kick off the week-long event

A recent StatusNet blog goes into detail about how the event will be paced:

Jon Phillips is a moderator and organizer of the Sharism Conference in Shanghai which is taking place on Friday October 22,2010. He will be talking on Friday from 1:00pm to 1:30pm.

All are invited to this initial Sharism Forum to see the fruits of our labor.

From Get It Louder, the action continues into the Arab World. On October 23, much of the Fabricatorz Team will present at ICTQatar, a workshop based around free software and open source development. Main goals for this event will be to educate those eager to discover methods for open source development, advantages in using them, and why open source techniques are important. Attendees can expect all free culture bases to be covered, including: backgrounds, latest developments, and practical how-to's.

Rounding out an action-packed next few days, Fabricatorz will be assisting AikiLab in putting together a DJ/VJ Party at the HackerSpace, in Damascus. Partying is free, but the drinks will cost!

Even more news, events and recaps on tap for next week!

UPDATE:Jon Phillips adds a huge thank you to Fabricatorz team members, Christopher Adams and Sophie Chiang for making Sharism Forum real. Without them, the conference would not have happened. Thank you so much. Fabricatorz coordinated the Sharism Forum happening in Shanghai right now with the help of our sponsors, Get It Louder, Google and Mozilla.

Fabricatorz are back in the development cycle after weeks filled with travel, meetings, and community events. Developer Bassel Safadi is busy building out new features for his rapidly evolving Aiki Framework, while Brad Phillips helps improve Aiki's portfolio with new and improved sites. Official announcements on these projects are expected next week, and feel free to utilize Brad's newest GPL-Themed web badges!

Meanwhile, Founder Jon Phillips and Developer Christopher Adams capped off successful journeys, in Tokyo, with Digital Garage, by taking the stage at The New Context Conference 2010. Building off of last week's CC.ASIA site launch, Jon and Christopher spoke about Sharism and it's potential impact in Asia.

From Asia, Jon landed in London, where he was a featured speaker at the Future of Web Apps Conference.

Later this month, many of our Fabricatorz (including Bassel, Christopher, Jon, and Barry Threw) will be featured at ICT Qatar, an open source workshop that will aim to inform and educate attendees about F/LOSS (Free Libre Open Source Software) and how it can be effectively utilized.

More details and Releases are on the agenda for next week!