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No wonder web2 isn't going to last: http://www.verbumvanum.org/shirky/index.html

"In the good ol' days that would have been unthinkable..." I totally agree. But didn't Sun stop shipping a compiler with it's OS back in 90? From what I've read it had a significant (positive) impact on the distribution of gcc. MS isn't the first company to realize that shipping an OS and then charging for developer tools is just another way to make more money.

I'm involved in free distribution of text too (http://www.verbumvanum.org/ and I'm utterly amazed at the attitude even so-called 'non-profit' orgs have.

The whole goddamn IP thing should be abolished, I say. True, copyrights are less worse then patents, but still; it's just not of these times anymore. Just as the feodal system didn't work anymore in the industrial age, so doesn't IP work anymore in the cyberage.

In any case, if the authors gave permission, or, if it is in the public domain (which in first instance would be the case, since they'll start with pre-1920 books, as I've understood), then what the f- are they complaining about.

Maybe they earned money distributing books that were in the public domain? Well, heck, though then. I mean, what, we aren't here to subsidise non-profits, after all, and while I understand they're complaining from their view, it's a free market, after all.

I've been wondering, btw. Why didn't anyone come up with the idea to make one giant liberary, with a system that 'lends' ebooks? After three weeks it can't be used anymore, and it becomes available in the lib repository again. That way, it'll EXACTLY work like a regular lib, bypassing all the 'but they copy my work' whiners.

The longer this crap continues, the longer I'm thinking society should move on, and stimulate a sort of mass-online patronage, or an improved flatfee thingy, like we already have now on many 'blanc' copymedia. This way, we would prevent all those lonesome, poor, starving musicians from a terrible hunger-death, and people could do what they already are doing, but then legal.

The current system has become obsolete; people that don't get that yet, are worse off then Don Quichotte.

Ofcourse, this is not without controversy -especially with leet-speeking people.

I tried to have a slashdot article of it, but apparently the Higher Mods were of the opinion leet wasn't interesting enough...untill now (?).

The reasearchpaper can be found on: http://www.verbumvanum.org/indexlingua.html

A real interesting article in this regard can be found at http://www.verbumvanum.org/shirky where some additional insight is given about social dynamics in Open Source Projects.

I think the major error these sites/projects make, is that they do not incorporate the goals with which they start in any binding legal form. Thus, after a while, they fall prey to commercialism, often in its worst form. While their is nothing wrong with commercialism, when left unchecked, it will ultimately destroy the very thing it made it great. Time and again, the ideology is replaced by commercialism...unless you make sure, from the start, that can't happen.

Some open source projects, such as Linux, have understood that, and were GPL'ed. This safegards any commercialism that would destroy it's very foundation.

Another one, more in line with the Gutenburg Project, is the OPLA. This can be found on http://www.verbumvanum.org; a site dedicated to the same goals as project gutenburg, but which has learned the lessons of OSS/GPL.

A very interesting link in this regard can be found on http://www.verbumvanum.org/shirky

While you give some valid points, in the lines of online-group-analysis, it must also be noted that on totally anonymous networks, where there is no moderator, chans are still viable.

It's strange people always seem to think there is a dichotomy between free speech and having a working structure. there does not need to be. If systems adapt an automated ignoring possibility (such as the '/ignore' on irc), then it's still fully possible to have free speech for all, and yet not be bothered by people that try to bother you.

Besides that, I think there is one big difference between online and rl: in the first, when push comes to shove, one can always redraw from unpleasant situations with a simple click of the mouse, something that ain't always problem when it involves reality.