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Free as in Books?
donkeyDevil writes "Forget free software, contribute to free books! The Chronicle has an interesting story about bookcrossing.com's effort to track feral books through their captors. Read about it, then do it.
(Although the focus of the story is on Bay Arean book releasors, it looks like you'd have a better chance of snagging a free book here.)"
... has been going on for a long time making out-of-copyright works available to the public.
Here you have it: Project Guttenberg
Ummmm it's volountary dude. If you "find" a book crossings book, you're under no obligation whatsoever to register that fact, or to re-release it. Nobody is MAKING you do anything you don't want to. Sheeeeeesh.
As to books of dubious nature, have yiu actually been to the bookcrossings site and seen the titles that are being released and found? many great works of literature.
This is a FUN thing to do, no sense of Big Brother at all.
People who participate enjoy it, and a lot of them that have found books, read something they would never have read before, and have enjoyed doing so.
And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour Isaiah 3:5
Yes, because the absolute best message we can present to kids is "Reading is only meaningful when digested in a suitable, prepackaged form", followed by "Literature has no room for spontaneity" and of course the all-time favorite, "There's no way that reading could be fun, something you do on your own time."
Yessiree, that's sure to spike the interest of kids in reading...
Of course, the sane answer is, Why can't we do both? Teach literature in school and make it available to everyone?
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Because it's voluntary.
Because it's non-intrusive.
Because it's opt-in.
Because it's not done by the government.
Because it's not done by a corporation whose only god is the bottom line.
Because it's non-exhaustive: you can ignore the books, pick one up and read it without tracking it, etc.
The threats to human freedom are real and urgent. But they're not omnipresent... sometimes, data can be a good thing. And I'd much rather see volunteer-driven, indivudal-centric projects like this than a mandated, national, bureaucratic effort like a national ID.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Think about it. Buy a chart CD and then register it on a site and release it. Persuade people to listen to it and then pass it on (Remember kids, copying is bad).
Everyone can then listen to the latest CDs without having to buy them first.
Then sit back and wait to see how long it will be before the RIAA makes giving away your personal property illegal.
The most popular subjects there are "Science, Math and Computing" with 289 titles. There are quite a few other subjects covered there too.
The Assayer is more than just a list of books though - it has reader-contributed reviews. For example, here is the entry for DocBook: The Definitive Guide by Norman Walsh (available at www.docbook.org). There is a review at the bottom of the entry page.
I'm writing a Free book, although it is at a very early draft stage. The ZooLib Cookbook is a tutorial for the ZooLib cross-platform application framework.
I'm also slowly creating a copylefted collection of articles on software quality at the Linux Quality Database.
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
... and how's your local library doing these days? Aside from getting slapped with censorware, protested for containing dangerous books like Harry Potter, and generally going broke, my local branch is just ducky.
The charm of this kind of project is that you find it where you least expect it. It's spontanious, requires no forethought on your account, and exposes you to literature you might not have considered picking up, or even looking for, in a library. It gets around the problem of indexed systems (libraries included), which is that you have to know what you're looking for in order to find it.
Plus, this is about sharing information with anybody, anytime, anywhere, for no reason whatsoever expect that somebody thought it was worthwhile and that other people might enjoy it.
That sounds almost noble, to me.
GMFTatsujin
Jesus, watching the display of jaundiced and paranoiac viewpoints in this thread is enough to make me want to never read this forum again.
This isn't a damn privacy rights thing. Nor is it about how people should be donating these books to libraries, or whether they should or shouldn't be tracking them, or if some publisher is going to game the system for nefarious means. It's just harmless fun -- an all-volunteer effort by a group of people who love to read.
I mean, kick ass. Buona sera. I love it. More power to them. Can't some of you just revel in one of the wonders of the 'net without reaching for your tinfoil hats? Can't you just stop being critical asses long enough to see something that's really, truly good? Are you all that cynical?
Maybe I should drop a copy of The Power of Positive Thinking in a comic book store somewhere and try to help one of you.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.