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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. "
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.
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http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/esgutenbe
And more to the point, to whom are we supposed to send Shakespeare's royalties? (and Jane Austin, and Homer, and.....)
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.