The vacation season is upon us as soon as once more, and this yr I made a decision to have fun in an open source way. Like a specific well-known vacation busybody, I’ve a protracted record (and I do intend to examine it twice) of vacation duties: create a greeting card (with addressed envelopers) to ship to household and buddies, make a photograph montage or video to a suitably festive tune, and beautify my digital workplace. There are loads of open supply functions and assets making my job simpler. Here’s what I exploit.
Inkscape and clip artwork
One of my favourite assets is FreeSVG.org (previously Openclipart.org). It’s straightforward to search out your favourite vacation, together with Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year’s, and extra. The clip artwork is all contributed by customers such as you and me, and Creative Commons Zero (CC0), so you do not even want to supply attribution. When doable, I nonetheless do give attribution, to make sure that FreeSVG and its artists get visibility.
Here’s an instance of some clip artwork from FreeSVG:
Using Inkscape’s Text to Path software, I added my very own textual content to the picture, which I used on a card. With a bit of extra preparation, I may additionally use the graphic on some customized cups or placemats.
Word processing
LibreOffice Writer can be utilized to create greeting playing cards and posters to be used round your own home or distributing to your family and friends. Create a database of your loved ones and buddies utilizing LibreOffice Calc after which use that useful resource to simplify making mailing labels with the mail merge operate.
Creative Commons photos and graphics
There’s additionally artwork on search.creativecommons.org. Mind the license sort: give correct credit score to something requiring attribution. This picture (“Thanksgiving Dealies”) got here from the Creative Commons picture search. It’s by Martin Cathrae and is licensed underneath CC BY-SA 2.0, so it may be tailored, reused, and shared underneath the identical license.
I took this similar picture and added a few of my very own textual content to it with GIMP. You can use Inkscape to do the identical factor.
Creative Commons presents loads of picture choices that may make for a festive background throughout your subsequent video conference.
Videos and reside streaming
You also can incorporate photos like these together with a few of your personal and create a brief video clip utilizing OpenShot video editor. You can simply add narration by recording a separate voice observe utilizing Audacity. Sound results will be added in Audacity, saved to file, and imported right into a soundtrack on OpenShot video editor. Find legal background music so as to add to your video.
Livestream your vacation gatherings with Open Broadcaster Software. It’s straightforward to make use of OBS to current an enticing vacation present on your family and friends utilizing the software program, or it can save you this system as a Matroska or MP4 file for later viewing.
Reading materials
Project Gutenberg is a wonderful supply of free vacation studying materials to share. Dickens’ Christmas Carol is one such useful resource that’s simply learn on the net or downloaded as an EPUB or in a format on your favourite eReader. You also can discover royalty-free studying supplies, like “The Feast of Lights” from Librivox, in mp3 format to allow them to be downloaded and performed in your favourite browser or media participant.
Holiday enjoyable
The most essential side of the vacation season is that they are enjoyable and enjoyable occasions with family and friends. If you’ve got bought relations interested in computer systems, take a second to share a few of your favourite open supply assets with them.
