Well behaved monkeys rarely make history

Some students at the IT University at Copenhagen were challenged to apply open source ideals to “real” life (you know, that stuff that occurs outside of digital life). They decided to create the first open source beer. They have published their recipe, including branding and design components, under the Creative Commons License which entitles anyone to use and change the recipe as they see fit (and even profit from it), they just also have to publish their version under the same license. Vores Øl (Our Beer), Version 1.0, is a “medium strong beer (6% vol) with a deep golden red color and an original but familiar taste.” They also brew it with Guarana which is basically naturally occurring caffeine – man do they know their target market or what?

Why beer?
Why not? We all like beer, and as an added bonus there is a legendary quote used to explain the concept of free software (now usually referred to as open source software):

“Free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech”, not as in “free beer”.

We think that our open source beer is a nice twist on this quote, and we think it is interesting to see if our beer grows stronger in out in the free and perhaps one day becomes the Linux of beers. Who knows?

You can read a little more about it here http://www.voresoel.dk and A LOT more about it if you speak Danish.