Glas

Hans Glas GmbH is a former German automotive company, which was based in Dingolfing. Originally a maker of farm machinery, Glas evolved first into a producer of motor scooters, then automobiles. It was purchased by BMW in 1966, mainly to gain access to Glas's patents, they were the first to use a timing belt with an overhead camshaft in an automotive application, with its limited model range shortly phased out by its new parent.

History

Mechanic Andreas Glas founded a repair company for agricultural machines at 1895 in Pilsting. He named the company Andreas Glas, Reparaturwerkstätte für landwirtschaftliche Maschinen mit Dampfbetrieb (in English: Andreas Glas, repair-shop for steam-powered agricultural machines). During the summer periods about 16 people worked for him. In 1905 Andreas Glas' company built their first sewing machines. He then had sufficient work to employ all his employees during the winters. The production of sewing machines rose from year to year:

Since 1905 Glas had a branch office in Dingolfing. He started to produce in Dingolfing in 1908 with 150 sewing machines per year. The production count rose each year.

Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia Commons (or simply Commons) is an online repository of free-use images, sound, and other media files. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Files from Wikimedia Commons can be used across all Wikimedia projects in all languages, including Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikivoyage, Wikispecies, Wikisource, and Wikinews, or downloaded for offsite use. The repository contains over 30 million media files. In July 2013, the number of edits on Commons reached 100,000,000.

History

The project was proposed by Erik Möller in March 2004 and launched on September 7, 2004. A key motivation behind the setup of a central repository was the desire to reduce duplication of effort across the Wikimedia projects and languages, as the same file had to be uploaded to many different wikis separately before Commons was created.

Several sister projects (e.g. Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Spanish, Basque, Polish, Czech and Slovak Wikipedias) moved all their media content to Commons and stopped allowing local uploading. Some projects, such as the English Wikipedia, have more compliant copyright policy and allow to upload and keep files which are not acceptable at Commons, e.g. fair use images.

GNU Free Documentation License

The GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL or simply GFDL) is a copyleft license for free documentation, designed by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for the GNU Project. It is similar to the GNU General Public License, giving readers the rights to copy, redistribute, and modify a work and requires all copies and derivatives to be available under the same license. Copies may also be sold commercially, but, if produced in larger quantities (greater than 100), the original document or source code must be made available to the work's recipient.

The GFDL was designed for manuals, textbooks, other reference and instructional materials, and documentation which often accompanies GNU software. However, it can be used for any text-based work, regardless of subject matter. For example, the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia uses the GFDL (coupled with the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License) for all of its text.

History

The GFDL was released in draft form for feedback in September 1999. After revisions, version 1.1 was issued in March 2000, version 1.2 in November 2002, and version 1.3 in November 2008. The current state of the license is version 1.3.

Johnson Controls

Johnson Controls, Inc. is a multinational conglomerate producing automotive parts such as batteries and HVAC equipment, to optimize efficiencies of buildings, automotive batteries, electronics and interior systems for automobiles.

It is a Fortune 500, diversified, multi-industrial,company with 170,000 employees in more than 1,300 locations across six continents. As of 2012 it was listed as 67th in the Fortune 500 and 251st in Global 500.

On January 25, 2016, Johnson announced a tax inversion merger with Tyco International to form "Johnson Controls plc" which will then be an Irish company operating globally.

History

In 1883, Warren S. Johnson, a professor at the State Normal School in Whitewater, Wisconsin, received a patent for the first electric room thermostat. His invention helped launch the building control industry and was the impetus for a new company. Johnson and a group of Milwaukee investors incorporated the Johnson Electric Service Company in 1885 to manufacture, install and service automatic temperature regulation systems for buildings. After Johnson's death in 1911, the company decided to focus on its temperature control business for nonresidential buildings. The company was renamed Johnson Controls in 1974.