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Article On Project Gutenberg Founder
P.J. Hinton writes: "The News-Gazette, a newspaper in Champaign, IL, ran a feature in their Sunday edition about the founder of Project Gutenberg. Besides offering descriptions of his unusual eating habits, it gives an insight into the projects foundations almost thirty years ago and notes some criticism that he's received for his work. Defintiely a good read and a reminder that long before CDA, RIAA, MPAA, DMCA, and the USPTO, there were other entities all too willing to block access to information. "
Is that it renders Gutenberg absolutely useless for a vast body of texts. How does one mark up Beowulf, or other Old English texts, without an eth (ð) character? How does one markup Old Norse? French without the cedilla? Central European and Russian character sets present even more problems, and that's before we get to ideographic writing.
Don't get me wrong - I admire Project Gutenberg and the myriad contributors for their work, but I think ASCII, while possibly a sensible choice when Gutenberg was founded, is flawed in the long run. And SGML or XML DTD that allows use of non-Roman character sets would be a boon to Project Gutenberg and its potential audience.
Add to this that both hold extremely "populist" political positions that contrast sharply both with capitalists and "big government" socialists...
Despite some big storms of controversy, RMS has been somewhat more successful at attracting money to his efforts, mind you...
My suspicion is that both have, too often, backed themselves into extreme corners that have forced them apart from the "mainstream" in a manner that has been hurtful to their purposes. They probably don't need to disagree as much as they do...
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Have you checked out the site _at_all_? Perhaps you should read the instructions on how to make etexts where it goes over in detail how to correctly use a scanner and OCR to create one. Stick your foot in your mouth and start reading before spouting off!
HTML may be replaced by updated standards, but it's not going "out the window". And even if it would, there would be a simple migration path.
(As a side point -- Unicode will make ASCII obsolete....)
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Somehow, I get the feeling you are. Assuming you're the same "Anonymous Coward" that started this thread, then if you're posting these in earnest then you've done nothing but reveal your own hypocrisy.
Not exactly. After all, they wouldn't be poor if they were responsible and independent, would they?
In most cases, you are probably right. But never forget that there are no hard and fast rules where humanity is concerned; the best you can do is find a tendency towards something or other.
No, the poor deserve to be poor, and they choose to be poor.
Whoa, hold on there. Read my above statement. I would agree that those who choose to be poor do deserve it. But again, there are those who do not choose it; what of them?
Mostly it's genetic. I think it would be safe to say that on a scale of 1 to 10, the poor are born at 2 and are driven down to 1 by the welfare state.
One moment. It would seem to me that you support a free state, where all have an equal opportunity but what they do with it is up to them (which is, more or less, what we have now). And I agree; that is the best way of doung things (indeed, the only way; people seem to have forgotten that we're all individuals, so equal opportunity doesn't necessarily mean equal results). However, this last statement of yours throws that out the window completely. You cannot believe both without being a hypocrite, since the genetics issue kills the idea of "all men are created equal." You speak derisively of several groups (notably the "Klintonistas") with implications that you would tie them to Nazism. Yet your last statement reeks of the very thing you despise.
The inevitable logic of the welfare state dictates that the poor will eventually be forced to download and read these books, to "improve" them (as if there were anything left to improve after they've been worked over by the Klintonistas).
Not that I've seen. Frankly, I've seen the exact opposite, which is even worse; little if any real attempt at getting people off of welfare and back into society as functioning, contributing members thereof.
The basic premise of Liberalism is to do exactly that: "Improve" others against their will, by means of armed force.
Show me evidence of that and I'll be impressed. I can name as many concervative groups that would do the same (and before you go calling me a liberal, I'm not, as anyone I know can tell you. But I do have a heart).
I also get the impression you might not be attacking the project, or the ideals of the project, but rather Hart's ideals.
The two are inextricable. Hart is certainly a deluded psychotic and a dangerous criminal, and his "project" is just what one would expect from such a source.
While I agree that it's hard to separate Hart's ideals from those of the project (seeing as he defined said ideals, and only has his own to work from), I don't see how he's deluded at all. And certainly not dangerous; name one person he's ever hurt.
I was trying (successfully) to say that Project Gutenberg is a criminal and subversive organization which must be destroyed at any cost.
Hasn't looked too successful to me. Of course, it would help if you produced any evidence to support your claims, but you seemingly refuse to do so. Instead you just spout like a volcano.
It is a statist attempt to upset the natural order established by free competition.
Hardly. These works are comparatively ancient. There is little if any profit in republishing them. Why, then, give that task to a group that doesn't seek profit anyway? Certainly better than to give it to a business that would lose money by doing so.
It is a statist attempt to propagandize in favor of an intellectual welfare state.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong here. The tone of your writings is somewhat reminiscent of Ayn Rand. This, plus the content of your posts, leads me to believe you're an Objectivist, seeing as I've never met an Objectivist who didn't have a style reminiscent of hers (which is understandable, given the Objectivist philosophy on aesthetics). Last I checked, Objectivism viewed the intellect as among the most important things out there, perhaps the only thing which could be called sacred (a word I know you'll flame me for using, but what word has more appropriate connotations?) So clearly, the spread of knowledge is a good thing by your beliefs. Since this knowledge can no longer be profited from, how is Gutenberg bad? You seem to say that money makes right, that a man should be judged by how much he is worth (this being from that line about people who don't want to pay for Shakespeare not being morally equipped to handle it). Even Rand herself didn't believe that.
He tells me that he never went to college, but his daddy got him this job. I chew now. He drinks some milk. He has a milk moustache. He tells me he has written about two articles. The rest of the time he is a janitor. He chews again. He puts some jelly on the toast. He takes another bite. I chew. He chews.
I ask him how long he has been working at the Gazette. He replies, "Three years." Other journalists that have interviewed him say that he chews with his mouth open. He informs me that he interviewed some guy who ate a bunch of sugar and did something about online books. He recounts a story of how much garlic this person eats. He takes a bite of toast. He chews. I chew.
I ask him if he chews with his mouth open. He says no. I know better, I have ate with him.
THE END.
This reminds me of forced labor.
Some writer once complained that a farmer can "transfer the control of his property" to their descendants for _ever_, but his "transfer" will only last for some years. Land is not the same as intellectual but I can see a point.
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Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
They have some free examples to show you, including The Declaration of Independence of the United States. What do you have to do to get it? Download about 6 megs of Adobe Acrobat, then download this file. It sends back CPU and hard drive identification to Adobe, and you then get your key. All this to read the Declaration of Independence....
Long live Project Gutenberg!
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If any of read you Machiavelli the goverment and comapnies wants to control what you read, listen to, and who speak to. This is very important for control. Individuals now can access information that they never had a chance to access before. The world leaders are getting scared and they want to make sure they control your life remember alot people have a FBI file. I pretty sure I do. Being a first generation american they would want to keep track of me. But remember it is and always has been who has the knowledge that will be in control.
http://theotherside.com/dvd/
And this has what to do with Project Gutenberg?
He wants to give away free "works of genius" to parasites.
Since you know how to use /. I have to assume you're not an utter moron, so you must be posturing for some obscure reason. Maybe you're a shill for the RIAA?
The whole idea behind copyright laws is to protect an artist's work for a limited time. Got that? For. A. Limited. Time. Read that about five or six times, until it sinks in. Pay special attention to that word, "limited."
Works are supposed to pass into the public domain after a while. Hart is simply putting such works on the Web for all to see. All legal, all moral, all well within the spirit of copyright law. Now tell me, where does socialism come into the picture?
Shakespeare didn't revolutionize the Judeo-Christian/Western European literary tradition by sitting around waiting for a handout. He earned his keep fair and square. He worked damned hard.
He worked damned hard at ripping off the hard work of his contemporaries, you mean. Maybe you want to provide a different example?
I didn't get the impression, from the article, that Hart is living off of welfare or anything. I'm sure he'd like to see some grant money come his way, but I doubt he'd change his lifestyle much -- he seems comfortable enough. So what the hey is your problem?
-- Dirt Road
Improvise - Adapt - Overcome (unofficial USMC motto)
All I can say is, if Hart doesn't change his diet, he won't live to see 54...! yikes!
GMH Rules! But, please, what Project Gutenberg are you using? No Hopkins on the one I use.
Go out to an old bookstore, or Bookfinder and dig up some musty old tomes that were published back before 1923 or so and aren't yet in Project Gutenberg. Original editions, not re-translations or re-issues, so there can be no doubt about their public domain-ness. Check with P.G. to determine their eligibility. Then scan 'em in.
I have a couple of old translated Arsene Lupin novels by Maurice Leblanc that I intend to scan in when I have the time. God knows they need more; they only have one, The Glass Stopper.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
I meant to convey the fact that the rich poor gap is widening.
Of course the gap is widening. So what? If you don't like people being rich to begin with, then please say so. But it's meaningless to say that the richer are getting richer than the poor are getting richer. It conveys no useful information.
While the country as a whole *is* attaining greater wealth, it is strongly top heavy. 'Free' helps eliminate rich privilage.
I'm assuming you're talking about the topic at hand, the Gutenberg Project. If so, I fail to see your point. The middle class can go into a bookstore and acquire any of those texts for $4.95. The poor can go into a library and borrow exactly the same works for free. The rich in this case have no priviledges.
But to the topic of "topheaviness". This is simply untrue. If the largest segment of the population were poor, you would have a point. But that is not the case. The largest segment of the population is middle class. Think of it as a bell curve. There are extrememly few destitute people in the nation, and the filthy rich are just as rare. But in between you have a smooth hump in the curve known as the middle class. There is no disproportionate lump at either end of the curve.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
If you think the auto industry could have thrived in a nation where 85% of the population couldn't afford to buy cars, take a long cold look at Medeival Europe (or modern Afghanistan) and call me in the morning. The kind of pervasive working-class poverty that Libertarians dream of would come with some problems which, for religious reasons, you are unwilling to recognize.
Neither Medieval Europe of modern Afghanistan have anything whatsoever to do with freedom or market economies. On one hand you have extreme totalitarianism and on the other near anarchy in a war zone. Of course neither of these groups could afford autos. Hell, they couldn't even build them!
The fact that you equate those two societies with libertarianism suggests you don't even know what a libertarian even is.
But if you want to take it on religious faith that all wealth is stolen from the poor and working classes, I won't try to proselytize.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
You've never bought a book, have you?
You don't know where to shop, do you? A paperback classic goes for 4.95. The typical paperback goes for one or two dollars more, but there's no royalties to pay for public domain works, so they're less.
Visit West Virginia, or any old mill town in New England.
Until two years ago, I lived in a rural county that had the country's highest poverty rate and the highest percentage of welfare recipients. That particular region, not demographic, had a damaged economy. I made no claim that particular regions won't have economic disparities.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
American capitalism fails in giving freedom by making the rich richer and the poor poorer.
This is completely false. At best it is merely an example of lying with statistics. A widening gap between the rich and poor does NOT mean that the poor are getting poorer. If the rich get 10% richer and the poor get only 5% richer, guess what? The poor are getting richer!
Yes, there are some individuals getting poorer. Impossible to avoid that under any economic system. But in the US, there is no demographic or group that is getting poorer.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
You're talking about individuals, I was talking about demographics. No matter what the economy or political system, there will always be some individuals moving downwards. There's simply no way to avoid it. Unfortunate but true.
However, by demographics I was not referring to job sectors. I was talking about race, parental economic status, gender, etc. If you want to talk about job sectors getting screwed by the rich, then let's not forget to include the all time poorest profession, the drayman.
Of course, only the wealthiest 15% of the population would be able to buy the products of those factories
Have you any realistic notion of economics whatsoever? Businesses want to earn profits and the only way they can do so is to sell their product or service. If a company can sell it's product for 10% less and make a bigger profit (since they will have more customers), they will do so in a heartbeat. Pull out your high school econ textbook and look up marginal costs. I would love to be a businessman in your above scenario, 'cause I would then target my business to the lower 85% that everyone else foolishly ignored.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Clue: there is naught anti-free market about giving things away for free, as long as it is not coerced by a government or anyone else. If one has the resources and wishes to be a philanthropist then that is one's right. It is also one's right to solicit other's help in such an endeavour.
Clue: it is hardly the impoverished who benefit (at least immediately) from project Gutenberg. It is scholars and students, lvoers of books and their ilk who do. These are books online--one does tend to need a computer to access them. This is sheer information. Do you oppose the library? At least an argument can be made that the library uses tax dollars when private donors are likely to provide funds and trusts for such a purpose.
Clue: Hart does not live off of welfare. The 'Kindness of strangers' referred to is donations. Do you believe that the clergy live off of the welfare?
Clue: the market does not really care much for old books. There is something of a market for their physical artifacts, but not that much of a market for the books themselves. If there were, we might see an eBook archive of old, out-of-print books. Of course, the funny thing would be that since the copyrights have expired someone else could publish them. That's why we have expiring copyrights.
Project Gutenberg cuts all that sort of middleman nonsense. It lives on the edges of the market, goes where no sane businessman would go (there is no profit to be made charging people for what is free, although oxygen bars belie my point). It provides a valuable service to mankind for free. It asks no tax money. It just asks that we contribute as we see fit. In other words, as we value it. In other words, it asks the market to value it and pay it accordingly.
Project Gutenberg is a free enterprise. Were you to quell it, you would be no better than a socialist centraliser, ruthlessly manipulating for your won ideological pleasure. You would by no means be an advocate of the free market or of freedom. You would be an authoritarian.
As an aside, I urge everyone to contribute to the project. Type in a book, donate old computers or just donate some money. If you use the service, help it out.
Text in electronic form has never been easy to read on a computer screen. I spend most of my time in front of my computer and you will still not catch me reading a book on it! Software like e-book still does not make it easy. Is there any info on an open source reader with simple/useful features like autoscrolling, light text on dark background, margin notes etc?
Maybe even a napster like side that lets you maintain your own library and download new books.
Perhaps even an emacs plugin will do...
I am sure this would make a nice complement to Project G and make online text more popular. Also, it would make publicising the whole thing easier.
You know what's the weirdest thing about project Gutenberg? (The weirdest thing I noticed anyway).
Take a look at the "standard.new" and "NEWUSER.GUT" files on the FTP sites.
Check out that justification! The text is
formatted so that it's left AND right justified,
with a fixed width font and with no extra spaces. i.e. The text was carefully written in such a way that it just happened to fit perfectly.
Pretty strange.
Bang the head that doesn't bang!
You're up to your usual high standards. I especially liked the parts where "people who are too poor to buy his books are ipso facto too stoopid and morally defective to deserve to read Shakespeare" and "none of Faraday's fraudulent theories outlasted his lifetime." That last reminds me of some of the crackpot shit that those anti-Kommunists sent the FBI regarding Einstein's "anarchistic," "metaphysical" theories. Just delightful!
But hey d00d I just gotta tellya like don't f**k with Project Gutenberg, d00d. I'd like take it personal 'cause I just this last weekend scanned volume one of Haldane and Kemp's English translation of Schopenhauer's World as Will and Idea, all 568 pages of it, Kegan Paul, Trench and Trubner Publishers, 1909. Only two more volumes, a mere thousand pages to go. And they're really only appendices anyway; volume one is the complete core of World as Will and Idea. I bet you'd get a kick out of Schopenhauer. I've got three short books of his essays on my web page, two of which that haven't been proofread, hint, hint. They're free for the downloading. However, a special charge for downloading applies to Randites: five dollars, or two hundred rubles, per volume. We accept Visa.
Here's tonight's straight line for Randite Man:
Why, it so happens that as a contribution to Project Gutenberg, I myself have scanned all of volume one and, thus far, 250 pages of volume two, of Papa Karl's Capital, Charles Kerr Publishers, 1906. (This is actually true, too, but I quit doing Capital for a while because a guy emailed me volunteering to proofread Schopenhauer's magnum opus. I'm tellin ya, proofreading is a lot of work and proofreaders are hard to come by, so if someone volunteers you bet I'm going to take advantage of his offer.) I'm proud to have contributed my time and effort to this splendid project. All people, no matter how oppressed by poverty (OK I'm pushing it there - oppressed by poverty, yet with Internet access!) should have the opportunity to study and learn from this ground-breaking, magnificent work of economic theory.
Take it away, Randite Man!
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
Just a quick request/plea/suggestion: if you find a typo in a Project Gutenberg etext, please email me the fix. Or, fix the text and email me the text! There are definite quality problems with stuff prior to 1994 especially....today, though, the etexts have higher quality standards and go through more proofreading before posting.
promo.net/pg for the listings; you can link to any of the 2500+ etexts from there. Thanks.
my email: gbnewby@ils.unc.edu
I recently corresponded with the guy who runs PG. I wanted to write an application to interface with PG that allowed people to view the texts to their own liking. You can't customize a web browser to the hilt just for one damn page, so this way you could have a centralized place where you went to read these electronic books, it would allow you to highlight passages, email quotes, save bookmarks, all kinds of great shit. The only problem with writing it was that the index files on the FTP sites are total shit for a program to parse. Partial author names, partial title names, some places like "[Reserved for 2001, by Arthur C Clarke]", all kinds of stuff that makes parsing it almost impossible.
So I wrote him asking if he would make the destailed database or an ascii export of it available on the mirrors and such (the web page features all kinds of complex search features and a great browsing funciton to find certain books with ALL information in FULL, so he's got to have one somehwere). What did he reply with? "Sure, the aim of project guttenberg is to provide etexts to as many individuals as possible?" Hell no! He got pissed off and started saying he thought the website was a better idea (the website is shit, sir, sorry to let you in on it, but you can't have close to the kinds of features I was going to provide) and he would not provide any kind of computer-readable index file in order to prevent such things from happening!
So much for "Free texts readable by humans and computers alike" and the entire concept behind PG. They tell people they can feel free to convert the collection to HTML if they want and similar things, but I'm guessing that if that was done, PG would speak out against it and get quite pissed off. I wasn't even thinking of changing the format, just giving the user a really nice configurable reader!
Esperandi
we can get them to mirror DecSS source code as an electronic text. Or maybe one of us should right a historical account of the whole DecSS affair and include the source code to show exactly what started the whole affair and then have them mirror it. I do think that what project Gutenburg is doing is *very* good for society as a whole. I used several of the texts from project Gutenburg in my college english classes. If I happened to have a few 19th century books laying around the house I would definately scan them in and send them to the project. That's one of the main problems with the project, nothing modern is going in. I wonder if project Gutenburg would accept origianl works from internet authors, on subjects like computer programming or networking. I think that maybe I'll write a begginers book on java programming and submit it to see if they will accept it. Lots of the readers here on slashdot have aquired vast amounts of knowledge and maybe some of them would be willing to share that knowledge with others. (ahemmm useful knowledge not an Idiots guide to being a troll :) ) [please to do not hurt me with your trollish powers you must only use them for the good of mankind.]
Environmentalists are their own worst enemy. ~tricklenews.com
I think the reason that it hasn't gotten the attention of mainstream public is because nobody's figured out how to make money from it, or to make some kind of commercial product from it.
But, isn't it very much like Open Source? The spirit of Free Software is very much the same as the idea of Free Books (not free as in price, though it is that too). It takes volunteers to contribute to a repository that is freely open to all.
It's a shame that he's not getting more support.
I wonder if there's anyway someone can somehow take his effort and offer it as a commercial product. I think some CD-ROM makers have done so, but give some of the proceeds into the project.
I think Project Gutenberg is excellent and very useful. I recently used a large number of its texts to collect data on the frequencies of letters and pairs of letters in English (for a cryptanalysis program I am working on). Anyway, I think it would be neat to hear of oddball uses for such a database, that would be very difficult without it (other than just being able to read cool stuff for free).
"Politics is for the moment, an equation lasts eternity" -A. Einstein
I for one have started reading a book from the Gutenberg collection, and then gone out and bought a copy to finish reading it. (I did it for all the usual printed over digital reasons [i.e. I can take a book anywhere, I can curl up on the couch with it, etc.]) I can't help but wonder how many people have use the project in this "try it before you buy it" way, and how much money has been made because of it.
Defintiely a good read and a reminder that long before CDA, RIAA, MPAA, DMCA, and the USPTO, there were other entities all too willing to block access to information.
Also an example of how such obstacles can be overcome. Sure, CDA/RIAA/MPAA/DMCA/etc. may be bugging certain people now, but as illustrated in this example, that doesn't mean that a reasonable solution won't be reached.
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I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
The premise on which Michael Hart based Project Gutenberg was: anything that can be entered into a computer can be reproduced indefinitely. . .what Michael termed "Replicator Technology" The concept of Replicator Technology is simple; once a book or any other item (including pictures, sounds, and even 3-D items can be stored in a computer), then any number of copies can and will be available. Everyone in the world, or even not in this world (given satellite transmission) can have a copy of a book that has been entered into a computer.
The Project Gutenberg Philosophy is to make information, books and other materials available to the general public in forms a vast majority of the computers, programs and people can easily read, use, quote, and search.
The major point of all this is that years from now Project Gutenberg Etexts are still going to be viable, but program after program, and operating system after operating system are going to go the way of the dinosaur, as will all those pieces of hardware running them.
For anyone who hasn't read it, there's a much better article about Michael Hart written for Wired a few years ago. He certainly seems like an, um, odd fellow, but I wouldn't mind meeting him sometime.
r g.html
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/esgutenbe
Second, we who use it need to support it. If there are any worthy causes, Project Gutenberg is one. Who else performs such a massive work without compensation, without help (and oftentimes with a lot of deliberate trouble-making)? This isn't something as material as world hunger (a worthy cause, too, but in a different way); this is our very culture! If every person who uses the Project submitted just one favourite old book, imagine how quickly it would have grown. It would have far more than the 10,000 he wanted by 2,500.
We also need to fight the ridiculous expansion of copyright. Copyright should last at most to the author's death, or to the emancipation of his children. No adult child has any inherent natural right to control his father's published writings, IMHO. The Disney-sponsored extension is just plain flat-out ridiculous. Whom is it protecting? The authors who are dead long before copyright expires? Their children, who are retired at best? No, it protects large Disneyesque media corporations. They don't need protection. This legislation simply ruins it for the rest of us.
There are many more out-of-print books than books in print. I would wager, though, that the last century has seen more books published than all previous centuries put together. Relaxing copyright to a saner system would release many works to the world.
Amen to this! I've been using Gutenberg for years as a source of Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Gerard Manley Hopkins, etc., to read on my Palm during train trips, meetings (everyone assumes you're doing something useful--try that with a paperback), and long installations.
Since PG insists on plain ASCII, all you need is a freeware txt-to-Palm converter (MakeDOC) and a freeware text reader (CSpotRun lets you turn the text sideways for easier reading). The reading experience on a sharp LCD screen is much better than on a CRT. I've actually got untouched books on my shelves that I read on my Palm because it was easier.
Thanks to PG, I still spend plenty of time with my old friends from college--the classics. If it weren't for Hart, they would have drifted away like my "real" friends.
I think this article served as a little tidbit into the ideals of project Guttenburg. First off and foremost, there seems to be dispute about the validity of some of the texts, and the amount of errors thererin.
The choice of books to be included in the project is made by the people involved in the project, Hart has no say in this and will do everything within his power to avoid suggesting a book for you to work on, he serves more as an administrator of the whole project, keeping it working and from falling off the ends of the earth.
Secondly, the prospective texts are passed through the hands of multiple editors in an attempt to get rid of the most of these errors. The goal is for the text to be as completely free of errors as possible (I seem to recall a reference to 99.9% free of errors in a few places). However, the amount of errors is again left to the editors and the creators of the text, and not upon Hart himself.
I think the largest issue facing the project, which was not brought up by the article, is the proposed extension of copyrights for 25 more years I beleive it is. If this were the case, then things would not be entering the public domain for a much longer period of time, thus decreasing the amount of material available to the project and preventing some very important works of literature from making their way into the public domain!!!
OK, I think my little idealistic rant is over now...
Its sad the way some people want to stop the flow of information. Its very sad that they were able to buy laws that would allow them to continue. By controlling media for the absurdly long time that is done now (originally, copyrights only lasted 14 years) Big media gets to control not only our there media, but our culture in general. Walt Disney has been dead for decades, and yet his copyrights live on.
Its disgusting not only that this is allowed to happen, but that those that are at its forefront don't even stop to consider the deleterious effects of there actions.
Amber Yuan 2k A.D
"and dear god does this website suck now." -- CmdrTaco
My writing teacher in High School was so worried about all the worlds books being put on computers. She was worried that it could be locked away from people by one authority. I'm fairly certain that it would happen as she predicts. Gutenburg is a good example of that. Where are entities like the EFF, in Hart's case? While they rally to DeCSS's cause, others like this one go hungry. Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying DeCSS is without merit. Literature for the masses though, is a tad more important than DVD.
-Remove the 86 from my email to contact me.-
I remember when I first heard about Project Gutenberg. It was such a great concept. Unfortunately, I've never had the time to do anything really to help out.
I wonder if anyone who's made a lot of money on these tech IPOs would be interested in contributing to helping support the free dissemination of literature.
Many of us sit and rant and rave about copyright and open source, and everything being free, but I think we get too lost in being the tech elite and forget that, well, there's more to technology than just propagating technology. Technology is designed to help people, and perserving and promoting literature is a great way to help people through exposing them to culture.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
Thanks to Gutenberg, I'm much better educated, literature-wise, and much more convinced of the future potential of handhelds in spreading information and knowledge cheaply and effectively. -- q
Can we get him for a Slashdot Interview? Project Gutenberg comes up here from time to time. While I don't know whether there is general interest among Slashdot readers, I think Project Gutenberg qualifies as one of the earliest pioneers in free, online distribution.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.