"The SELF Platform is a web platform for the collaborative construction, editing, remixing and translation of educational materials. It is an educator-centric production environment for learner-centric materials. To ensure the spirit of collaboration all materials are under a free license, which can be used, reused, modified and distributed freely.

It’s almost 8 PM on a Tuesday night, and the lecture hall here at Virginia Tech University is filled nearly to capacity. The students – many of them computer science majors – have come to hear Richard Stallman, the grand forefather of GNU/Linux. The crowd is chatty and seems in a good mood.