From hart at pglaf.org  Wed Jan  5 14:20:22 2005
From: hart at pglaf.org (Michael Hart)
Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2005 14:20:22 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [PGCanada] Re: [gutvol-d] PG-50/70? (fwd)
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.60.0501051420171.19180@pglaf.org>



---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2005 15:16:58 -0500
From: Wallace J.McLean <ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca>
Reply-To: Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion <gutvol-d at lists.pglaf.org>
To: gutvol-d at lists.pglaf.org
Subject: Re: [gutvol-d] PG-50/70?

We need a bulwark in the English-speaking world. We really need to set
up a PG-50 in Canada. Soon. Very, very soon.



----- Original Message -----
>From  Tony Baechler <tb at baechler.net>
Date  Wed, 05 Jan 2005 06:41:56 -0800
To  traverso at dm.unipi.it, Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion
<gutvol-d at lists.pglaf.org>
Subject  Re: [gutvol-d] PG-50/70?


Hi.  Are the new posts from PG Europe going to be announced on
the "posted"
list as is currently done with books from PG of Australia?  Also, what
about getting a gutenberg.eu or gutenberg.int domain?

At 12:07 PM 1/5/2005 +0100, you wrote:
>Project Gutenberg Europe is starting at http://pge.rastko.net ; it is
>located in serbia, hence will work as life+50 soon: currently it is
>just a mirror of PG, new material from DP-EU will be uploaded quite
>soon.

_______________________________________________
gutvol-d mailing list
gutvol-d at lists.pglaf.org
http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d


From jlinden at pglaf.org  Thu Jan  6 05:47:04 2005
From: jlinden at pglaf.org (James Linden)
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 08:47:04 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] PG Canada
Message-ID: <41DD4158.4000203@pglaf.org>

Several people have recently voice a desire to get PG Canada going. I'd 
like to invite them to do so. I am not currently in a place of my life 
that I can devote any time to PG, so I'm going to fully step aside and 
let everyone else go at it without me in the way.

I currently have control of the projectgutenberg.ca domain, and I'll 
point DNS to whomever is going to host the site, just give me the DNS 
server names.

I will be staying on the mailing lists so as to still be available if 
the need arises.

May PG Canada succeed (and kick PG USA's butt!)... EH!

Regards,
   James Linden
   http://www.kodekrash.com/
   http://www.eidix.org/


From darryl at moores.ca  Sun Jan  9 20:59:02 2005
From: darryl at moores.ca (Darryl Moore)
Date: Sun, 09 Jan 2005 23:59:02 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] PG Canada
In-Reply-To: <41DD4158.4000203@pglaf.org>
References: <41DD4158.4000203@pglaf.org>
Message-ID: <41E20B96.9000608@moores.ca>

That's too bad James. I was hoping we could get some help from you, 
however, I fully understand. My time has been really tight too, however 
I have been continuing to work on this a bit here and there. Not nearly 
as fast as I'd like though.

I have a wiki almost set up on my home site on which I'd like to 
collaborate with others on creating the corporate documentation. (some 
of which is already in a rough draft) As I've said before I think a 
registered Not-For-Profit (then hopefully charity) will get more 
attention on The Hill then 'a bunch of guys with a web site'.

Also, I found an interesting open source document database at: 
http://docdb.sourceforge.net/
I am trying to install it on my home server for testing purposes. If we 
can add to this some way to convert XML<-->ASCII when 
submitting/retrieving documents, this might be all we need (with a few 
static web pages) to get a basic PG up and running. And running in James 
preferred incarnation. Thoughts???

-------
As an aside, as I've been getting more and more annoyed with MS over 
recent years, and as I've learned more and more about IP issues, I've 
finally taken the big step and moved all my home and work machines over 
to Linux. Wouldn't have been nearly so painful if I weren't at the same 
time trying to set up all kinds of servers, implement networking, remote 
'X' server/clients etc... Oh well, I'm almost at the top of the initial 
  learning curve now.
-------

cheers,
darryl

James Linden wrote:
> Several people have recently voice a desire to get PG Canada going. I'd 
> like to invite them to do so. I am not currently in a place of my life 
> that I can devote any time to PG, so I'm going to fully step aside and 
> let everyone else go at it without me in the way.
> 
> I currently have control of the projectgutenberg.ca domain, and I'll 
> point DNS to whomever is going to host the site, just give me the DNS 
> server names.
> 
> I will be staying on the mailing lists so as to still be available if 
> the need arises.
> 
> May PG Canada succeed (and kick PG USA's butt!)... EH!
> 
> Regards,
>   James Linden
>   http://www.kodekrash.com/
>   http://www.eidix.org/
> _______________________________________________
> Project Gutenberg of Canada
> Website: http://www.projectgutenberg.ca/
> List: pgcanada at lists.pglaf.org
> Archives: http://lists.pglaf.org/private.cgi/pgcanada/
> 



From jlinden at pglaf.org  Mon Jan 10 06:07:34 2005
From: jlinden at pglaf.org (James Linden)
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 09:07:34 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] The reasons... (was PG Canada)
In-Reply-To: <41E20B96.9000608@moores.ca>
References: <41DD4158.4000203@pglaf.org> <41E20B96.9000608@moores.ca>
Message-ID: <41E28C26.3010209@pglaf.org>

If there are little things here and there that I can do, feel free to 
ask. An hour here or there I can do. :-)

---------------------------------------------------------

I have about 350 texts in a database (and the source code to use said 
database), but in order to use the system, the content must be in a 
certain psuedo-markup. This markup takes about 5 minutes to apply to an 
average novel type text.

Demo can be seen at http://ibiblio.org/edison/engine/catalog.browse.php 
-- incidentally, this was the demo of the FIRST working markup-based 
system for PG, which was rejected by the masses as too much work (about 
3.5 years ago). Ironically, I wrote the engine in about 20 hours, and 
put the 350/ish texts in, by hand, in about 15 hrs. That's ~23 texts per 
hour - far less work than it currently takes.

At that rate (let's say 20 per hour), 10 volunteers could put PG's 
entire current collection (about 12,000 distinct/usable items) into the 
system in about 60 hours. As they do this work, the catalog, etc is 
automatically built, and various alternate formats automatically 
available. New formats can be added later, with each previously entered 
text automatically in that format.

Some rather basic Java applets and a bit of cooperation with DP could 
have put this post processing right into the DP system, with the 
automatic format conversion the end result, instead of various 
mismatched HTML/TXT, etc outputs.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Basically, my lack of forward motion on PG related matters is more a 
result of being completely fed-up with PG as a whole, and not being 
willing to _waste_ my time for nothing. I get paid for my expertise in 
dealing with data formats / knowledge repositories / collaborative data 
management. While I'd love to give the same to PG, I'm not going to be 
insulted while I'm doing it. (Note: my problems with PG started circa 
2000.) It was decided that my formatting/management engine wasn't 
workable for PG, by whomever make those decisions, so basically, 
continuing to work on the engine isn't worth my time and effort. I 
_still_ don't understand this, because in direct conversations with both 
Greg and Michael, I distinctly remember _both_ of them thinking it was a 
good idea.

------------------------------------------------------------------

As I see it, the big problem with PG is that everyone wants to be in 
charge of something, so PG is broken up into a zillion micro-managed 
pieces. It is this complete lack of process order that creates MORE work 
and slows everything down.

When Michael first talked to me about getting PG Canada started, there 
were a set of specific items that we both agreed on:

1) PG CAN would be completely independant of PG USA;
2) PG CAN would implement a "next generation" system, for PG CAN's own 
use and as a proof of concept for PG USA;

This next generation system includes collaborative processing, automatic 
format conversion, enhanced cataloging, capability for language 
translation, backend for voice synthesis (and not that garbage that's 
currently in PG's archive), and a few other things.

Not only have I spent years researching and experimenting, but I've 
created proof of concepts for all of it, at various times and in various 
pieces. What I am suggesting as the "next generation" for PG is not only 
possible, but well worth the effort.

Unfortunately, getting a half dozen programmers with proper skills and a 
similar vision has proven very difficult. So far, we have ONE, and he's 
only marginally available due to university and work. That leaves me, 
and my availability is only a little better, but around life and running 
a business, what time I do have that I can put into PG is uniformly 
wasted in political BS, turf wars, format wars, etc.

------------------------------------------------------------------

So, I should clarify / sum up -- I _HAVE_ time for PG related work, but 
it's limited to about 6 hrs per week. I don't want to waste that 6 hrs 
in turf wars and political crap, but it's not enough time to make 
headway with a development project of the appropriate size. This 
basically means that my 6 hrs is better spent doing other things right 
now. Understand, if someone paid me a small salary to cover my bills (so 
I wouldn't have to work as a contractor), I'd work for PG full time -- 
building this system. Once built, PGs could spring up all over the place 
(Russia, Africa, Asia, etc), just by installing said system and doing 
some basic configuration (default interface language, logo, etc). And, 
ALL output from ALL of them would be uniform and cross compatible! (And 
yeah, there would be TEI output...)

------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm going to stop my rant, even though there is a lot more to say...

Some docs about my ideas/system are available online:
http://www.kodekrash.com/index.php?p=11

-- James

Darryl Moore wrote:
> That's too bad James. I was hoping we could get some help from you, 
> however, I fully understand. My time has been really tight too, however 
> I have been continuing to work on this a bit here and there. Not nearly 
> as fast as I'd like though.
> 
> I have a wiki almost set up on my home site on which I'd like to 
> collaborate with others on creating the corporate documentation. (some 
> of which is already in a rough draft) As I've said before I think a 
> registered Not-For-Profit (then hopefully charity) will get more 
> attention on The Hill then 'a bunch of guys with a web site'.
> 
> Also, I found an interesting open source document database at: 
> http://docdb.sourceforge.net/
> I am trying to install it on my home server for testing purposes. If we 
> can add to this some way to convert XML<-->ASCII when 
> submitting/retrieving documents, this might be all we need (with a few 
> static web pages) to get a basic PG up and running. And running in James 
> preferred incarnation. Thoughts???
> 
> -------
> As an aside, as I've been getting more and more annoyed with MS over 
> recent years, and as I've learned more and more about IP issues, I've 
> finally taken the big step and moved all my home and work machines over 
> to Linux. Wouldn't have been nearly so painful if I weren't at the same 
> time trying to set up all kinds of servers, implement networking, remote 
> 'X' server/clients etc... Oh well, I'm almost at the top of the initial 
>  learning curve now.
> -------
> 
> cheers,
> darryl
> 
> James Linden wrote:
> 
>> Several people have recently voice a desire to get PG Canada going. 
>> I'd like to invite them to do so. I am not currently in a place of my 
>> life that I can devote any time to PG, so I'm going to fully step 
>> aside and let everyone else go at it without me in the way.
>>
>> I currently have control of the projectgutenberg.ca domain, and I'll 
>> point DNS to whomever is going to host the site, just give me the DNS 
>> server names.
>>
>> I will be staying on the mailing lists so as to still be available if 
>> the need arises.
>>
>> May PG Canada succeed (and kick PG USA's butt!)... EH!
>>
>> Regards,
>>   James Linden
>>   http://www.kodekrash.com/
>>   http://www.eidix.org/
>> _______________________________________________
>> Project Gutenberg of Canada
>> Website: http://www.projectgutenberg.ca/
>> List: pgcanada at lists.pglaf.org
>> Archives: http://lists.pglaf.org/private.cgi/pgcanada/
>>
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Project Gutenberg of Canada
> Website: http://www.projectgutenberg.ca/
> List: pgcanada at lists.pglaf.org
> Archives: http://lists.pglaf.org/private.cgi/pgcanada/
> 
> 


From darryl at moores.ca  Mon Jan 10 07:10:34 2005
From: darryl at moores.ca (Darryl Moore)
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 10:10:34 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] The reasons... (was PG Canada)
In-Reply-To: <41E28C26.3010209@pglaf.org>
References: <41DD4158.4000203@pglaf.org> <41E20B96.9000608@moores.ca>
	<41E28C26.3010209@pglaf.org>
Message-ID: <41E29AEA.5010903@moores.ca>

James, this is great!! I did not realize that so much work had been put 
into it already.

Question, can this system include some sort of search engine? 
(publication date, author, title, etc...). Also can we support pdf, doc 
and sxw formats as well?

Listen, if no one else is stepping up to the plate to do the work, than 
no one can complain about how it's done. You have a server, you have the 
software, you have me (an eager novice). What more do we need. Let's 
just do it!

cheers,
darryl


James Linden wrote:
> If there are little things here and there that I can do, feel free to 
> ask. An hour here or there I can do. :-)
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> 
> I have about 350 texts in a database (and the source code to use said 
> database), but in order to use the system, the content must be in a 
> certain psuedo-markup. This markup takes about 5 minutes to apply to an 
> average novel type text.
> 
> Demo can be seen at http://ibiblio.org/edison/engine/catalog.browse.php 
> -- incidentally, this was the demo of the FIRST working markup-based 
> system for PG, which was rejected by the masses as too much work (about 
> 3.5 years ago). Ironically, I wrote the engine in about 20 hours, and 
> put the 350/ish texts in, by hand, in about 15 hrs. That's ~23 texts per 
> hour - far less work than it currently takes.
> 
> At that rate (let's say 20 per hour), 10 volunteers could put PG's 
> entire current collection (about 12,000 distinct/usable items) into the 
> system in about 60 hours. As they do this work, the catalog, etc is 
> automatically built, and various alternate formats automatically 
> available. New formats can be added later, with each previously entered 
> text automatically in that format.
> 
> Some rather basic Java applets and a bit of cooperation with DP could 
> have put this post processing right into the DP system, with the 
> automatic format conversion the end result, instead of various 
> mismatched HTML/TXT, etc outputs.
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Basically, my lack of forward motion on PG related matters is more a 
> result of being completely fed-up with PG as a whole, and not being 
> willing to _waste_ my time for nothing. I get paid for my expertise in 
> dealing with data formats / knowledge repositories / collaborative data 
> management. While I'd love to give the same to PG, I'm not going to be 
> insulted while I'm doing it. (Note: my problems with PG started circa 
> 2000.) It was decided that my formatting/management engine wasn't 
> workable for PG, by whomever make those decisions, so basically, 
> continuing to work on the engine isn't worth my time and effort. I 
> _still_ don't understand this, because in direct conversations with both 
> Greg and Michael, I distinctly remember _both_ of them thinking it was a 
> good idea.
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> As I see it, the big problem with PG is that everyone wants to be in 
> charge of something, so PG is broken up into a zillion micro-managed 
> pieces. It is this complete lack of process order that creates MORE work 
> and slows everything down.
> 
> When Michael first talked to me about getting PG Canada started, there 
> were a set of specific items that we both agreed on:
> 
> 1) PG CAN would be completely independant of PG USA;
> 2) PG CAN would implement a "next generation" system, for PG CAN's own 
> use and as a proof of concept for PG USA;
> 
> This next generation system includes collaborative processing, automatic 
> format conversion, enhanced cataloging, capability for language 
> translation, backend for voice synthesis (and not that garbage that's 
> currently in PG's archive), and a few other things.
> 
> Not only have I spent years researching and experimenting, but I've 
> created proof of concepts for all of it, at various times and in various 
> pieces. What I am suggesting as the "next generation" for PG is not only 
> possible, but well worth the effort.
> 
> Unfortunately, getting a half dozen programmers with proper skills and a 
> similar vision has proven very difficult. So far, we have ONE, and he's 
> only marginally available due to university and work. That leaves me, 
> and my availability is only a little better, but around life and running 
> a business, what time I do have that I can put into PG is uniformly 
> wasted in political BS, turf wars, format wars, etc.
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> So, I should clarify / sum up -- I _HAVE_ time for PG related work, but 
> it's limited to about 6 hrs per week. I don't want to waste that 6 hrs 
> in turf wars and political crap, but it's not enough time to make 
> headway with a development project of the appropriate size. This 
> basically means that my 6 hrs is better spent doing other things right 
> now. Understand, if someone paid me a small salary to cover my bills (so 
> I wouldn't have to work as a contractor), I'd work for PG full time -- 
> building this system. Once built, PGs could spring up all over the place 
> (Russia, Africa, Asia, etc), just by installing said system and doing 
> some basic configuration (default interface language, logo, etc). And, 
> ALL output from ALL of them would be uniform and cross compatible! (And 
> yeah, there would be TEI output...)
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> I'm going to stop my rant, even though there is a lot more to say...
> 
> Some docs about my ideas/system are available online:
> http://www.kodekrash.com/index.php?p=11
> 
> -- James
> 
> Darryl Moore wrote:
> 
>> That's too bad James. I was hoping we could get some help from you, 
>> however, I fully understand. My time has been really tight too, 
>> however I have been continuing to work on this a bit here and there. 
>> Not nearly as fast as I'd like though.
>>
>> I have a wiki almost set up on my home site on which I'd like to 
>> collaborate with others on creating the corporate documentation. (some 
>> of which is already in a rough draft) As I've said before I think a 
>> registered Not-For-Profit (then hopefully charity) will get more 
>> attention on The Hill then 'a bunch of guys with a web site'.
>>
>> Also, I found an interesting open source document database at: 
>> http://docdb.sourceforge.net/
>> I am trying to install it on my home server for testing purposes. If 
>> we can add to this some way to convert XML<-->ASCII when 
>> submitting/retrieving documents, this might be all we need (with a few 
>> static web pages) to get a basic PG up and running. And running in 
>> James preferred incarnation. Thoughts???
>>
>> -------
>> As an aside, as I've been getting more and more annoyed with MS over 
>> recent years, and as I've learned more and more about IP issues, I've 
>> finally taken the big step and moved all my home and work machines 
>> over to Linux. Wouldn't have been nearly so painful if I weren't at 
>> the same time trying to set up all kinds of servers, implement 
>> networking, remote 'X' server/clients etc... Oh well, I'm almost at 
>> the top of the initial  learning curve now.
>> -------
>>
>> cheers,
>> darryl
>>
>> James Linden wrote:
>>
>>> Several people have recently voice a desire to get PG Canada going. 
>>> I'd like to invite them to do so. I am not currently in a place of my 
>>> life that I can devote any time to PG, so I'm going to fully step 
>>> aside and let everyone else go at it without me in the way.
>>>
>>> I currently have control of the projectgutenberg.ca domain, and I'll 
>>> point DNS to whomever is going to host the site, just give me the DNS 
>>> server names.
>>>
>>> I will be staying on the mailing lists so as to still be available if 
>>> the need arises.
>>>
>>> May PG Canada succeed (and kick PG USA's butt!)... EH!
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>   James Linden
>>>   http://www.kodekrash.com/
>>>   http://www.eidix.org/
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Project Gutenberg of Canada
>>> Website: http://www.projectgutenberg.ca/
>>> List: pgcanada at lists.pglaf.org
>>> Archives: http://lists.pglaf.org/private.cgi/pgcanada/
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Project Gutenberg of Canada
>> Website: http://www.projectgutenberg.ca/
>> List: pgcanada at lists.pglaf.org
>> Archives: http://lists.pglaf.org/private.cgi/pgcanada/
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Project Gutenberg of Canada
> Website: http://www.projectgutenberg.ca/
> List: pgcanada at lists.pglaf.org
> Archives: http://lists.pglaf.org/private.cgi/pgcanada/
> 



From jlinden at pglaf.org  Mon Jan 10 07:48:31 2005
From: jlinden at pglaf.org (James Linden)
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 10:48:31 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] The reasons... (was PG Canada)
In-Reply-To: <41E29AEA.5010903@moores.ca>
References: <41DD4158.4000203@pglaf.org>
	<41E20B96.9000608@moores.ca>	<41E28C26.3010209@pglaf.org>
	<41E29AEA.5010903@moores.ca>
Message-ID: <41E2A3CF.5080407@pglaf.org>

Search engine code is already there. just no frontend for it. :)

If I were to go back to working on this software, I'd want to launch it 
under a non-PG specific name, but all output, etc from the process would 
still be just as available to PG... Nothing would change, except that 
the name would clearly state that it wasn't part of "PG" per se.

You don't have any issue with that, do you?

-- James

Darryl Moore wrote:
> James, this is great!! I did not realize that so much work had been put 
> into it already.
> 
> Question, can this system include some sort of search engine? 
> (publication date, author, title, etc...). Also can we support pdf, doc 
> and sxw formats as well?
> 
> Listen, if no one else is stepping up to the plate to do the work, than 
> no one can complain about how it's done. You have a server, you have the 
> software, you have me (an eager novice). What more do we need. Let's 
> just do it!
> 
> cheers,
> darryl
> 
> 
> James Linden wrote:
> 
>> If there are little things here and there that I can do, feel free to 
>> ask. An hour here or there I can do. :-)
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> I have about 350 texts in a database (and the source code to use said 
>> database), but in order to use the system, the content must be in a 
>> certain psuedo-markup. This markup takes about 5 minutes to apply to 
>> an average novel type text.
>>
>> Demo can be seen at 
>> http://ibiblio.org/edison/engine/catalog.browse.php -- incidentally, 
>> this was the demo of the FIRST working markup-based system for PG, 
>> which was rejected by the masses as too much work (about 3.5 years 
>> ago). Ironically, I wrote the engine in about 20 hours, and put the 
>> 350/ish texts in, by hand, in about 15 hrs. That's ~23 texts per hour 
>> - far less work than it currently takes.
>>
>> At that rate (let's say 20 per hour), 10 volunteers could put PG's 
>> entire current collection (about 12,000 distinct/usable items) into 
>> the system in about 60 hours. As they do this work, the catalog, etc 
>> is automatically built, and various alternate formats automatically 
>> available. New formats can be added later, with each previously 
>> entered text automatically in that format.
>>
>> Some rather basic Java applets and a bit of cooperation with DP could 
>> have put this post processing right into the DP system, with the 
>> automatic format conversion the end result, instead of various 
>> mismatched HTML/TXT, etc outputs.
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Basically, my lack of forward motion on PG related matters is more a 
>> result of being completely fed-up with PG as a whole, and not being 
>> willing to _waste_ my time for nothing. I get paid for my expertise in 
>> dealing with data formats / knowledge repositories / collaborative 
>> data management. While I'd love to give the same to PG, I'm not going 
>> to be insulted while I'm doing it. (Note: my problems with PG started 
>> circa 2000.) It was decided that my formatting/management engine 
>> wasn't workable for PG, by whomever make those decisions, so 
>> basically, continuing to work on the engine isn't worth my time and 
>> effort. I _still_ don't understand this, because in direct 
>> conversations with both Greg and Michael, I distinctly remember _both_ 
>> of them thinking it was a good idea.
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> As I see it, the big problem with PG is that everyone wants to be in 
>> charge of something, so PG is broken up into a zillion micro-managed 
>> pieces. It is this complete lack of process order that creates MORE 
>> work and slows everything down.
>>
>> When Michael first talked to me about getting PG Canada started, there 
>> were a set of specific items that we both agreed on:
>>
>> 1) PG CAN would be completely independant of PG USA;
>> 2) PG CAN would implement a "next generation" system, for PG CAN's own 
>> use and as a proof of concept for PG USA;
>>
>> This next generation system includes collaborative processing, 
>> automatic format conversion, enhanced cataloging, capability for 
>> language translation, backend for voice synthesis (and not that 
>> garbage that's currently in PG's archive), and a few other things.
>>
>> Not only have I spent years researching and experimenting, but I've 
>> created proof of concepts for all of it, at various times and in 
>> various pieces. What I am suggesting as the "next generation" for PG 
>> is not only possible, but well worth the effort.
>>
>> Unfortunately, getting a half dozen programmers with proper skills and 
>> a similar vision has proven very difficult. So far, we have ONE, and 
>> he's only marginally available due to university and work. That leaves 
>> me, and my availability is only a little better, but around life and 
>> running a business, what time I do have that I can put into PG is 
>> uniformly wasted in political BS, turf wars, format wars, etc.
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> So, I should clarify / sum up -- I _HAVE_ time for PG related work, 
>> but it's limited to about 6 hrs per week. I don't want to waste that 6 
>> hrs in turf wars and political crap, but it's not enough time to make 
>> headway with a development project of the appropriate size. This 
>> basically means that my 6 hrs is better spent doing other things right 
>> now. Understand, if someone paid me a small salary to cover my bills 
>> (so I wouldn't have to work as a contractor), I'd work for PG full 
>> time -- building this system. Once built, PGs could spring up all over 
>> the place (Russia, Africa, Asia, etc), just by installing said system 
>> and doing some basic configuration (default interface language, logo, 
>> etc). And, ALL output from ALL of them would be uniform and cross 
>> compatible! (And yeah, there would be TEI output...)
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> I'm going to stop my rant, even though there is a lot more to say...
>>
>> Some docs about my ideas/system are available online:
>> http://www.kodekrash.com/index.php?p=11
>>
>> -- James
>>
>> Darryl Moore wrote:
>>
>>> That's too bad James. I was hoping we could get some help from you, 
>>> however, I fully understand. My time has been really tight too, 
>>> however I have been continuing to work on this a bit here and there. 
>>> Not nearly as fast as I'd like though.
>>>
>>> I have a wiki almost set up on my home site on which I'd like to 
>>> collaborate with others on creating the corporate documentation. 
>>> (some of which is already in a rough draft) As I've said before I 
>>> think a registered Not-For-Profit (then hopefully charity) will get 
>>> more attention on The Hill then 'a bunch of guys with a web site'.
>>>
>>> Also, I found an interesting open source document database at: 
>>> http://docdb.sourceforge.net/
>>> I am trying to install it on my home server for testing purposes. If 
>>> we can add to this some way to convert XML<-->ASCII when 
>>> submitting/retrieving documents, this might be all we need (with a 
>>> few static web pages) to get a basic PG up and running. And running 
>>> in James preferred incarnation. Thoughts???
>>>
>>> -------
>>> As an aside, as I've been getting more and more annoyed with MS over 
>>> recent years, and as I've learned more and more about IP issues, I've 
>>> finally taken the big step and moved all my home and work machines 
>>> over to Linux. Wouldn't have been nearly so painful if I weren't at 
>>> the same time trying to set up all kinds of servers, implement 
>>> networking, remote 'X' server/clients etc... Oh well, I'm almost at 
>>> the top of the initial  learning curve now.
>>> -------
>>>
>>> cheers,
>>> darryl
>>>
>>> James Linden wrote:
>>>
>>>> Several people have recently voice a desire to get PG Canada going. 
>>>> I'd like to invite them to do so. I am not currently in a place of 
>>>> my life that I can devote any time to PG, so I'm going to fully step 
>>>> aside and let everyone else go at it without me in the way.
>>>>
>>>> I currently have control of the projectgutenberg.ca domain, and I'll 
>>>> point DNS to whomever is going to host the site, just give me the 
>>>> DNS server names.
>>>>
>>>> I will be staying on the mailing lists so as to still be available 
>>>> if the need arises.
>>>>
>>>> May PG Canada succeed (and kick PG USA's butt!)... EH!
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>>   James Linden
>>>>   http://www.kodekrash.com/
>>>>   http://www.eidix.org/
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Project Gutenberg of Canada
>>>> Website: http://www.projectgutenberg.ca/
>>>> List: pgcanada at lists.pglaf.org
>>>> Archives: http://lists.pglaf.org/private.cgi/pgcanada/
>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Project Gutenberg of Canada
>>> Website: http://www.projectgutenberg.ca/
>>> List: pgcanada at lists.pglaf.org
>>> Archives: http://lists.pglaf.org/private.cgi/pgcanada/
>>>
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Project Gutenberg of Canada
>> Website: http://www.projectgutenberg.ca/
>> List: pgcanada at lists.pglaf.org
>> Archives: http://lists.pglaf.org/private.cgi/pgcanada/
>>
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Project Gutenberg of Canada
> Website: http://www.projectgutenberg.ca/
> List: pgcanada at lists.pglaf.org
> Archives: http://lists.pglaf.org/private.cgi/pgcanada/
> 
> 


From ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca  Mon Jan 10 08:26:38 2005
From: ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca (Wallace J.McLean)
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 11:26:38 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] Michael Geist in the Toronto Star
Message-ID: <16714a167b85.167b8516714a@ncf.ca>

Michael Geist, in his latest column in the Toronto Star, issues a call-
to-arms on a national on-line library.

The column is available on-line for a limited time at thestar.ca 
(registration required.)




From ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca  Mon Jan 10 08:31:58 2005
From: ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca (Wallace J.McLean)
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 11:31:58 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] Geist: National Web library do-able, affordable,
	visionary
Message-ID: <16a5a9167ce2.167ce216a5a9@ncf.ca>

Full text distributed with Prof. Geist's kind permission:



Toronto Star 
2005.01.10 
D03 
Michael Geist
Law Bytes 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------

National Web library do-able, affordable, visionary

------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------

In the mid-1990s, Ottawa established a bold new vision for the Internet 
in Canada. The centrepiece was a commitment to establish national 
Internet access from coast to coast to coast, supported by a program 
that would enable the country to quickly become the first in the world 
to connect every single school, no matter how small or large, to the 
Internet. Not only did Canada meet its goal, but it completed the 
program ahead of schedule. 

As we enter the middle of this decade, the time has come for Industry 
Minister David Emerson and his colleagues to articulate a new future-
oriented vision for the Canadian Internet. 

While the last decade centred on access to the Internet, the dominant 
issue this decade is focused on access to the content on the Internet. 
To address that issue, the federal government should again think big. 

One opportunity is to greatly expand the National Library of Canada's 
digital efforts by becoming the first country in the world to create a 
comprehensive national digital library. 

The library, which would be fully accessible online, would contain a 
digitally scanned copy of every book, government report, and legal 
decision ever published in Canada. 

A national digital library would provide unparalleled access to 
Canadian content in English and French along with aboriginal and 
heritage languages such as Yiddish and Ukrainian. The library would 
serve as a focal point for the Internet in Canada, providing an 
invaluable resource to the education system and ensuring that access to 
knowledge is available to everyone, regardless of economic status or 
geographic location. 

>From a cultural perspective, the library would establish an exceptional 
vehicle for promoting Canadian creativity to the world, leading to 
greater awareness of Canadian literature, science, and history. 

By extending the library to government documents and court decisions, 
it would help meet the broader societal goal of providing all Canadians 
with open access to their laws and government policies. Moreover, since 
the government holds the copyright associated with its own reports and 
legal decisions, it is able to grant complete, unrestricted access to 
all such materials immediately alongside the approximately 100,000 
Canadian books that are already part of the public domain. 

Creating virtual libraries to complement the world's great physical 
libraries is already underway. Project Gutenberg, an all-volunteer 
initiative, has succeeded in bringing thousands of public domain texts 
to the Web. 

Last summer, the British Library unveiled an ambitious plan to digitize 
and freely post on the Internet thousands of historical newspapers that 
are now in the public domain. That plan will bring more than one 
million pages of history to the Internet, including work from a young 
Charles Dickens. 

Last month Google announced that it had reached agreement with several 
of the world's leading research libraries, including ones at Harvard, 
Stanford, Michigan, Oxford, and the New York Public Library, to scan 
more than 15 million books into its search archive. Once the Google 
project is completed, the general public will enjoy complete, full-text 
access to thousands of books that are now part of the public domain 
because the term of copyright associated with those books has expired. 

For books that remain subject to copyright, Google will still scan a 
copy of the book, but will only grant the general public more modest 
access to its content, providing users with smaller excerpts of the 
work - a policy that is consistent with principles of fair use under 
copyright law. 

The Google project epitomizes the essence of the copyright balance. The 
public will benefit from unrestricted access to works in the public 
domain along with more limited access to other work, all without the 
need to seek any prior permission. 

Authors will still enjoy copyright protection in their work and will 
frequently find that greater access leads to increased commercial 
success. 

While digitally scanning more than 10 million Canadian books and 
documents is a daunting task, the Google project illustrates that it is 
financially feasible. Reports suggest that it will cost Google 
approximately $10 to scan each book. 

Assuming similar costs for a Canadian project and a five-year timeline, 
the $20 million annual price tag represents a fraction of the total 
governmental commitment toward Canadian culture and Internet 
development. 

In fact, the most significant barriers to a national digital library do 
not arise from fiscal challenges but rather from two potential 
copyright reforms currently winding their way through the system. 

First, the federal government is contemplating reversing the decade-old 
policy of avoiding Internet licensing by creating a new licensing 
system for Internet content that would create new restrictions to 
accessing online content. 

By proposing a very narrow definition of what can be accessed without 
compensation, the plan would effectively force millions of Canadian 
students to pay for access to content that is otherwise publicly 
available. 

Despite opposition from the education community, the proposal is 
marching forward, constituting a significant setback to the goal of 
encouraging Internet use in Canada. 

Given the Supreme Court of Canada's recent commitment to copyright 
balance and robust user rights, it is clear that for most uses no 
license is needed to provide schools with appropriate access to online 
content such as a potential national digital library. With this in 
mind, this proposal should be quickly scrapped. 

Second, the Canadian Heritage Minister Liza Frulla's Copyright Policy 
Branch recently announced that this year it plans to launch a public 
consultation on a proposal to extend the term of copyright in Canada 
from its current 50 years after the death of the author to at least 70 
years after death (authors enjoy exclusive copyright in their work from 
the moment of creation until 50 years after they die). 

Extending the copyright term would deal a serious blow to a national 
digital library because it would instantly remove thousands of works 
from the public domain. Although the U.S. and European Union have 
extended their copyright terms by an additional 20 years, the vast 
majority of the world's population lives in countries that have not. 
Those countries have recognized that an extension is unsupportable from 
a policy perspective. It will not foster further creative activity, it 
is not required under international intellectual property law, and it 
effectively constitutes a massive transfer of wealth from the public to 
the heirs of a select group of copyright holders. 

Given the economic and societal dangers associated with a copyright 
term extension, even moving forward with a consultation constitutes an 
embarrassing case of putting the interests of a select few ahead of the 
public interest. 

A new year is traditionally a time for bold, new resolutions. As 
Parliamentarians return to Ottawa, they should be encouraged to seize 
the opportunity to establish a national vision for the Internet that 
will again propel Canada into a global leadership position. 

Supported by appropriate copyright policies, a national digital library 
comprised of every Canadian book ever published would provide an 
exceptional resource for Canadians at home as well as advantageously 
promote the export of Canadian culture abroad. 

Michael Geist is the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce 
Law at the University of Ottawa. He is 

on-line at www.michaelgeist.ca. The opinions expressed herein are 
personal and do not necessarily reflect those of the University of 
Ottawa. 



From hart at pglaf.org  Mon Jan 10 08:32:35 2005
From: hart at pglaf.org (Michael Hart)
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 08:32:35 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [PGCanada] Michael Geist in the Toronto Star
In-Reply-To: <16714a167b85.167b8516714a@ncf.ca>
References: <16714a167b85.167b8516714a@ncf.ca>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.60.0501100832050.11895@pglaf.org>



On Mon, 10 Jan 2005, Wallace J.McLean wrote:

> Michael Geist, in his latest column in the Toronto Star, issues a call-
> to-arms on a national on-line library.
>
> The column is available on-line for a limited time at thestar.ca
> (registration required.)

Anyone willing to quote some of it?

mh


From scruss at sympatico.ca  Wed Jan 12 13:12:02 2005
From: scruss at sympatico.ca (Stewart C. Russell)
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 16:12:02 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] if there's anything I can do ...
Message-ID: <41E592A2.2030008@sympatico.ca>

I've been offering assistance to this (moribund?) project for some 
years, so I'm glad to see it has been revived.

  Stewart


From ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca  Wed Jan 12 14:45:06 2005
From: ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca (Wallace J.McLean)
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 17:45:06 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] if there's anything I can do ...
Message-ID: <1bd8041bd754.1bd7541bd804@ncf.ca>

Has it been?

Can we get a status report from whoever is "in charge", technically 
speaking?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Stewart C. Russell" <scruss at sympatico.ca>
Date: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 4:12 pm
Subject: [PGCanada] if there's anything I can do ...

> I've been offering assistance to this (moribund?) project for some 
> years, so I'm glad to see it has been revived.



From nwolcott at dsdial.net  Wed Jan 12 14:55:10 2005
From: nwolcott at dsdial.net (N Wolcott)
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 17:55:10 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] if there's anything I can do ...
References: <41E592A2.2030008@sympatico.ca>
Message-ID: <003501c4f8f9$cebdb1e0$d49495ce@gw98>

I undrstand that Iran has no copyright conventions. Is there an opening
here?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stewart C. Russell" <scruss at sympatico.ca>
To: <pgcanada at lists.pglaf.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 4:12 PM
Subject: [PGCanada] if there's anything I can do ...


> I've been offering assistance to this (moribund?) project for some
> years, so I'm glad to see it has been revived.
>
>   Stewart
> _______________________________________________
> Project Gutenberg of Canada
> Website: http://www.projectgutenberg.ca/
> List: pgcanada at lists.pglaf.org
> Archives: http://lists.pglaf.org/private.cgi/pgcanada/
>



From sly at victoria.tc.ca  Thu Jan 13 00:04:42 2005
From: sly at victoria.tc.ca (Andrew Sly)
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 00:04:42 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [PGCanada] if there's anything I can do ...
In-Reply-To: <1bd8041bd754.1bd7541bd804@ncf.ca>
References: <1bd8041bd754.1bd7541bd804@ncf.ca>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501122357140.1148@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>


On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Wallace J.McLean wrote:

> Has it been?
>
> Can we get a status report from whoever is "in charge", technically
> speaking?
>

Right now, I get the impression that James is willing
to put some time into helping out, but not to be a
full "in charge" organizer.

I've been staying in the background, but I think
it's perhaps time to come out and make Project
Gutenberg of Canada happen. I get the impression
that the interest is almost at a critical mass
right now, that could be lost if people don't
see results...

I've been trying to type up a message about this
for the past two days. I hope to post it here
tomorrow.


Andrew


From darryl at moores.ca  Thu Jan 13 06:34:07 2005
From: darryl at moores.ca (Darryl Moore)
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 09:34:07 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] if there's anything I can do ...
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501122357140.1148@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
References: <1bd8041bd754.1bd7541bd804@ncf.ca>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0501122357140.1148@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
Message-ID: <41E686DF.80102@moores.ca>

Andrew Sly wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Wallace J.McLean wrote:
> 
> 
>>Has it been?
>>
>>Can we get a status report from whoever is "in charge", technically
>>speaking?
>>
> 
> 
> Right now, I get the impression that James is willing
> to put some time into helping out, but not to be a
> full "in charge" organizer.
> 
> I've been staying in the background, but I think
> it's perhaps time to come out and make Project
> Gutenberg of Canada happen. I get the impression
> that the interest is almost at a critical mass
> right now, that could be lost if people don't
> see results...
> 

I agree.

Regarding James preference for being involved in a non-PG org, my 
personal opinion is that PG has a bit of a reputation and therefore if 
we want to also have some influence in Ottawa it is best we stay a part 
of PG. That being said, I do not think there is any reason we cannot do 
everything James wants to do as PGCanada. (I'm a newby so I could be 
wrong in this assessment)

It is still my intent to work on the legal side of creating this org, 
however my workload in other areas has increased since before christmas 
rather than let up at all. I do have a wiki set up on my home server now 
at www.moores.ca/wiki My intent is to put up all the legal resources 
I've found about setting up a not-for-profit and the draft articles I've 
created for others to review, markup, and comment on, hopefully by the 
week end.

James appears to have software which can do everything we need, and 
Russel has offered us a server to run it on. Is there anything more we 
need to get started?

I don't think so.

If James and Russel could spend a bit of time getting the code working 
on his server, maybe someone else could work on building an interface 
for it's search engine.

I can work on the legal entity, and try to chip in a bit on coding if 
needed, though I warn you my field is embedded controllers not network 
servers so non time critical coding tasks might be best for me.

If this is agreeable to others perhaps someone else could suggest an 
appropriate time line.

cheers,
darryl



From russell at flora.ca  Thu Jan 13 08:46:35 2005
From: russell at flora.ca (Russell McOrmond)
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 11:46:35 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [PGCanada] if there's anything I can do ...
In-Reply-To: <41E686DF.80102@moores.ca>
References: <1bd8041bd754.1bd7541bd804@ncf.ca>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0501122357140.1148@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
	<41E686DF.80102@moores.ca>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.58.0501131143540.25129@calcutta.flora.ca>


On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Darryl Moore wrote:

> James appears to have software which can do everything we need, and 
> Russel has offered us a server to run it on. Is there anything more we 
> need to get started?

  I'm doing some hardware shuffling, and will try to ensure that there is
a more dedicated machine that can be put to this task.  The idea will be
to have a machine that we can set up shell accounts on and push these
types of projects forward quickly.

  I'm wanting to offer what I can, but also wanting to ensure that there
are no dependancies on my time given I have a few projects underway and
already get too easily distracted.

-- 
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> 
 Happy Hacking, Eh!    http://www.digital-copyright.ca/blog/2 (My BLOG)
 Sign the Petition Users' Rights! http://digital-copyright.ca/petition/


From jlinden at pglaf.org  Thu Jan 13 08:47:41 2005
From: jlinden at pglaf.org (James Linden)
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 11:47:41 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] if there's anything I can do ...
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.58.0501131143540.25129@calcutta.flora.ca>
References: <1bd8041bd754.1bd7541bd804@ncf.ca>	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0501122357140.1148@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>	<41E686DF.80102@moores.ca>
	<Pine.LNX.4.58.0501131143540.25129@calcutta.flora.ca>
Message-ID: <41E6A62D.7010607@pglaf.org>

>>James appears to have software which can do everything we need, and 
>>Russel has offered us a server to run it on. Is there anything more we 
>>need to get started?
> 
> 
>   I'm doing some hardware shuffling, and will try to ensure that there is
> a more dedicated machine that can be put to this task.  The idea will be
> to have a machine that we can set up shell accounts on and push these
> types of projects forward quickly.
> 
>   I'm wanting to offer what I can, but also wanting to ensure that there
> are no dependancies on my time given I have a few projects underway and
> already get too easily distracted.

  If you need a backup/standby sys admin, let me know.

-- James


From sly at victoria.tc.ca  Thu Jan 13 10:57:04 2005
From: sly at victoria.tc.ca (Andrew Sly)
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 10:57:04 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [PGCanada] Historical look at Canadian Copyright
In-Reply-To: <41E6A62D.7010607@pglaf.org>
References: <1bd8041bd754.1bd7541bd804@ncf.ca>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0501122357140.1148@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
	<41E686DF.80102@moores.ca>
	<Pine.LNX.4.58.0501131143540.25129@calcutta.flora.ca>
	<41E6A62D.7010607@pglaf.org>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501131055410.17895@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>


A new title just released to PG, that provides a historical view
of copyright concerns about 100 years ago may be of interest:

The copyright question : a letter to the Toronto Board
of Trade by George N. Morang
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/14673

Thanks to Wallace for helping make this availible.



From ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca  Thu Jan 13 11:16:30 2005
From: ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca (Wallace J.McLean)
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 14:16:30 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] Historical look at Canadian Copyright
Message-ID: <1d65d51d778d.1d778d1d65d5@ncf.ca>

----- Original Message -----
From: Andrew Sly <sly at victoria.tc.ca>
Date: Thursday, January 13, 2005 1:57 pm
Subject: [PGCanada] Historical look at Canadian Copyright

> 
> A new title just released to PG, that provides a historical view
> of copyright concerns about 100 years ago may be of interest:
> 
> The copyright question : a letter to the Toronto Board
> of Trade by George N. Morang
> http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/14673


Better yet, look up Henry Carey's "Letters on International Copyright", 
which is also on PG.


From nwolcott at dsdial.net  Thu Jan 13 21:46:03 2005
From: nwolcott at dsdial.net (N Wolcott)
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 00:46:03 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] bounced mail
Message-ID: <00d401c4f9fd$fe8fde20$0100007f@gw98>

I joined PG of Canada and now when I set a post I get bounced mail "sent by a non-member to a member only list"  what gives?

N Wolcott  nwolcott2 at post.harvard.edu
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From sly at victoria.tc.ca  Fri Jan 14 00:18:48 2005
From: sly at victoria.tc.ca (Andrew Sly)
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 00:18:48 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [PGCanada] if there's anything I can do ...
In-Reply-To: <41E686DF.80102@moores.ca>
References: <1bd8041bd754.1bd7541bd804@ncf.ca>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0501122357140.1148@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
	<41E686DF.80102@moores.ca>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501140008560.19341@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>


On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Darryl Moore wrote:

>
> Regarding James preference for being involved in a non-PG org, my
> personal opinion is that PG has a bit of a reputation and therefore if
> we want to also have some influence in Ottawa it is best we stay a part
> of PG. That being said, I do not think there is any reason we cannot do
> everything James wants to do as PGCanada. (I'm a newby so I could be
> wrong in this assessment)

I think a careful reading of James' messages are in order. Of course,
I can't speak for him, but I believe that he was discussing the status
of the _software_ he had designed, preferring it to be an independant
item possibly used for PG purposes, rather than something with the
PG trademark "attached" to it.

I must admit that, for me, the Project Gutenberg name is part of
the draw. If someone just asked "Hey, I'm gonna make a collection
of marked-up texts, want to help?" I would likely jsut role my eyes
and think "Yet another person reformatting the same old texts?..."

> It is still my intent to work on the legal side of creating this org,
> however my workload in other areas has increased since before christmas
> rather than let up at all. I do have a wiki set up on my home server now
> at www.moores.ca/wiki My intent is to put up all the legal resources
> I've found about setting up a not-for-profit and the draft articles I've
> created for others to review, markup, and comment on, hopefully by the
> week end.
>

That would be really wonderful. Is there anything the rest of
us could do to help that?

Andrew


From sly at victoria.tc.ca  Fri Jan 14 00:27:24 2005
From: sly at victoria.tc.ca (Andrew Sly)
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 00:27:24 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [PGCanada] Moving ahead with PGCanada
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501140021360.19341@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>


Seeing the messages posted to this mailing list in the last week has
made me reevaluate my position relative to PG of Canada.

I had just assumed that work was going on behind the scenes, and
eventually, something would come out.

When I read James' message of Jan. 6, that made me consider what
the possibility was of taking a more active role myself.

Right now, I really want this to happen, so I will begin trying to act
as "main organizer" unless any objections are made.



First of all, I assume that we are working together, doing this as a
group.

Because we are a group, there are issues that will have to be
worked out, either ahead of time, or as they happen to come up.

If you are a single person making your own collection of books, such as
Stephen Davies at Gaslight (http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/), or Aurthur
Wendover at Arthur's Classic Novels (http://arthursclassicnovels.com/),
then you can work details out as you go along, and handle them in your
own way, because no one else needs to be aware of the details.

But with more people, communication of some kind is needed. In my
experience, if you get four PG volunteers discussing a particular
topic, you already are likely to have five different viewpoints.
These are the kind of ever-circling discussions that James has
expressed a distaste for. But an exchange of views must happen
unless we want to just have one person dictating "This is how
it's going to be!"

I must make comparisons here with what I know, which is
what I've seen with volunteers for PG-US. Despite some people
who argue to the contrary, PG has traditionaly avoided dictating
how details ought to be handled and been very open to volunteers
who want to do things a little differently. What this means is
that there have been many times when, for one particular detail,
you have had various volunteers each use their own preferred
method, and then eventually a consensus would emerge, and later
it would be stated as a "rule".

A good example of this is italics. In PG plain text files, you can
find italics indicated /like this/ or LIKE THIS or _like this_ as well
as occasionally other methods. In the end the use of _underscores_
has become the "rule". This approach of gradually letting a consensus
find itself can be seen in many other places, such as the encoding of
emdashes, use of HTML markup, how and when "new editions" are made, etc.

This has the benefit of encouraging volunteers, and, I would argue, is
partly responsible for the continuous growth PG has seen. However, it
does mean that there are a vast number of undocumented inconsistencies
in the PG archive, ranging from the very small to the glaringly large.

I would like PG of Canada to be more restrictive in its "guidelines",
even if this does mean that fewer titles will be contributed.

Right now I would suggest that effort should go toward getting the
legalities and a basic framework for a preliminary set of test files
in place.


Andrew



From darryl at moores.ca  Fri Jan 14 03:51:37 2005
From: darryl at moores.ca (Darryl Moore)
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 06:51:37 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] if there's anything I can do ...
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501140008560.19341@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
References: <1bd8041bd754.1bd7541bd804@ncf.ca>	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0501122357140.1148@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>	<41E686DF.80102@moores.ca>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0501140008560.19341@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
Message-ID: <41E7B249.6030803@moores.ca>

Andrew Sly wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Darryl Moore wrote:
>>It is still my intent to work on the legal side of creating this org,
>>however my workload in other areas has increased since before christmas
>>rather than let up at all. I do have a wiki set up on my home server now
>>at www.moores.ca/wiki My intent is to put up all the legal resources
>>I've found about setting up a not-for-profit and the draft articles I've
>>created for others to review, markup, and comment on, hopefully by the
>>week end.
>>
> 
> 
> That would be really wonderful. Is there anything the rest of
> us could do to help that?
> 

Yea, as soon as I put up what I've done, start marking it up and 
commenting on it. :-)

cheers,
darryl


From ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca  Fri Jan 14 07:08:00 2005
From: ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca (Wallace J.McLean)
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 10:08:00 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] Moving ahead with PGCanada
Message-ID: <1ec3401e8fa1.1e8fa11ec340@ncf.ca>

----- Original Message -----
From: Andrew Sly <sly at victoria.tc.ca>
Date: Friday, January 14, 2005 3:27 am
Subject: [PGCanada] Moving ahead with PGCanada

> I would like PG of Canada to be more restrictive in its "guidelines",
> even if this does mean that fewer titles will be contributed.

Can you offer some guidance as to more restrictive, how?




From mfulton at eisa.com  Thu Jan 13 16:20:32 2005
From: mfulton at eisa.com (Mfulton)
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 19:20:32 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] Michael hart says PG Canada needs help 
Message-ID: <000501c4f9ce$fbdc1420$1f77c3d1@z7c2b6>

I can offer only to prepare a book in plain text from time to time.  I sent
to PG Australia three of charles Williams' novels, and Gertrude Bell's
letters. in the last two years.  I am midway through "The Great Lone Land".
I thought I might later do the biography of Lord Minto (published 1935) by
John Buchan (died 1940).  Would these be suitable?

Please tell me what is the status quo with PG Canada, and what does it need?
Marjorie Fulton





From ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca  Fri Jan 14 08:59:12 2005
From: ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca (Wallace J.McLean)
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 11:59:12 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] Michael hart says PG Canada needs help
Message-ID: <1eafb01ed4a9.1ed4a91eafb0@ncf.ca>

----- Original Message -----
From: Mfulton <mfulton at eisa.com>
Date: Thursday, January 13, 2005 7:20 pm
Subject: [PGCanada] Michael hart says PG Canada needs help

> I thought I might later do the biography of Lord Minto (published 
> 1935) by John Buchan (died 1940).  Would these be suitable?

That would be a great start! A 1935 pubdate means it's not clearable 
under PG-USA rules, but the 1940 death date means it IS clearable for 
PG-Canada's future purpose.




From sly at victoria.tc.ca  Fri Jan 14 09:47:32 2005
From: sly at victoria.tc.ca (Andrew Sly)
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 09:47:32 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [PGCanada] Moving ahead with PGCanada
In-Reply-To: <1ec3401e8fa1.1e8fa11ec340@ncf.ca>
References: <1ec3401e8fa1.1e8fa11ec340@ncf.ca>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501140940240.10713@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>


On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, Wallace J.McLean wrote:

> From: Andrew Sly <sly at victoria.tc.ca>
>
> > I would like PG of Canada to be more restrictive in its "guidelines",
> > even if this does mean that fewer titles will be contributed.
>
> Can you offer some guidance as to more restrictive, how?

To start with, assuming we are going to use James' system for our
files, only taking texts which are whatever markup format we use,
instead of saying "plain text first, and then additional formats
whenever people are interested in preparing them."

I can tell you from the point of view of those of us who have
been making corrections, improve cataloging records, etc. for
older PG files, having various files in different formats can
be something of a headach to deal with.

And assuming we can this whole xml system to work out,
I would cautiously say that it may help avoid some of
the inconsistency I mentioned in my last message
(such as marking italics in different ways)

Andrew


From jlinden at pglaf.org  Fri Jan 14 11:31:28 2005
From: jlinden at pglaf.org (James Linden)
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 14:31:28 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] Text management/formatting (was: Moving ahead with
	PGCanada)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501140940240.10713@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
References: <1ec3401e8fa1.1e8fa11ec340@ncf.ca>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0501140940240.10713@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
Message-ID: <41E81E10.7010500@pglaf.org>

Andrew Sly wrote:
>>>I would like PG of Canada to be more restrictive in its "guidelines",
>>>even if this does mean that fewer titles will be contributed.
>>
>>Can you offer some guidance as to more restrictive, how?
> 
> To start with, assuming we are going to use James' system for our
> files, only taking texts which are whatever markup format we use,
> instead of saying "plain text first, and then additional formats
> whenever people are interested in preparing them."
> 
> I can tell you from the point of view of those of us who have
> been making corrections, improve cataloging records, etc. for
> older PG files, having various files in different formats can
> be something of a headach to deal with.
> 
> And assuming we can this whole xml system to work out,
> I would cautiously say that it may help avoid some of
> the inconsistency I mentioned in my last message
> (such as marking italics in different ways)

   First off, Andrew is correct -- I do not want my project, UniBook, to 
be under any sort of PG umbrella -- I wrote it for a far bigger purpose. 
PG is just one of many projects that can make use of it. I have no 
problem providing the source code (once I clean it up a bit) under an 
open source license.

   My system uses psuedo markup, and is actually _easier_ to do than 
PG's vanilla text (in my opinion). I still have to write full 
documentation on the syntax, something I've held off doing because of 
aforementioned political BS.

   As long as the content is imported into UniBook using this syntax, it 
can be automatically parsed with accuracy. Obviously, all imports would 
be vetted by humans, but that'd be a minimal amount of work.

   I should mention that the demo at ibiblio.org/edison is very rough, 
and doesn't have all the formats support that I've actually written and 
have backed up on CD. That CD also has the search engine, browse by 
title/author/date/genre/LOC heading/style, etc.

   When I last worked on the code (over a year ago), I had full output 
support for 6 formats, and beta level output for another 3. There are 4 
more still on my list to write after those 3 beta ones are finished. 
Once a text is in the system, outputing takes an average of 1/2 second 
per format (TXT and XML are much faster, but TEI and PDF are a bit 
slower). So, assuming the code is done for all 13 formats, that'd take 
less than 7 seconds to (re)generate all formats for each text (assuming 
the text is 1MB in size) in the archive. It averages out (based on 
current texts in PG) to be about 3 seconds per text, because many of 
them are well under 1MB.

   Assuming we have 15,000 items (as MH says), which we actually do NOT 
have, that'd take about 32 hrs to regenerate the entire library in 13 
formats.

   Adding new output formats is very easy -- it's just a PHP class with 
a single required function which accepts one parameter -- the document 
content. What that function does is irrelevent as long as it returns the 
final output or filename as a string. This means it can either build the 
output itself, or call an external program, etc.

   Let's say that PG's desired master format is TEI, UniBook can output 
it as mentioned. If that TEI spec every changes, we just have to change 
the output function, and regenerate the archive in only that format.

   Maintaining the archive becomes child's play as well -- make any 
edits to the database record(s) that are needed, then re-generate the 
output formats. This makes it extremely easy to implement a user 
submitted error corrections system which "admins" can just verify items 
to be changed, instead of having to go through the files manually, etc.

   Here's where UniBook currently stands:

    1) Need some code cleanup (I pretty much have to do that since I 
wrote it) After that, we can CVS/SVN it for cooperative maintainance.

    2) Need administration interface (web based) for importing files, 
confirming imports, managing extra catalog data (LOC headings, etc). I 
can handle this as well if needed.

    3) Need GUI for building the importable files. I've written several 
different versions of such an app in VB, but it really needs to be done 
in Java, so it's portable as an app, and embeddable as an applet for 
web-based interface. This is where I need help -- I don't know enough 
Java to write GUIs from scratch. I can provide a fully functioning VB 
GUI (with code if desired) that would just need to be reproduced in 
Java. The whole interface is relatively simple - a WYSIWYG with limited 
functionality.

   Once a GUI is written, it'd be child's play to get ALL of PG's 
current  text imported into the system - by volunteers interested in 
doing it - along with all new text being done with it natively.

   Oh yeah, should I mention some of the other cool things that can be 
done with this system as the base? Like automatically generating CD ISO 
images for any combination of texts? For example: we can do a CD for 
each year's new/updated texts, without wasting space on ones that 
haven't changed. Or, we can generate a CD image for all of Shakespeare, 
etc. People can build their own list and have an ISO automatically 
generated for them to download, with the texts in the format(s) of their 
choice...

   ...the list goes on and on...

-- James


From jlinden at ticluse.com  Fri Jan 14 11:37:11 2005
From: jlinden at ticluse.com (James Linden)
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 14:37:11 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] bounced mail
In-Reply-To: <00d401c4f9fd$fe8fde20$0100007f@gw98>
References: <00d401c4f9fd$fe8fde20$0100007f@gw98>
Message-ID: <41E81F67.9070408@ticluse.com>

Norman,

  You are subscribed as nwolcott2 at post.harvard.edu, but since a lot of 
your emails have been coming in from nwolcott at dsdial.net, I've added 
that email address to the member list as well. That should fix your 
problem. If you not, just let me know and we'll figure it out. :-)

-- James

PS: You should get 3 copies of this email!

N Wolcott wrote:
> I joined PG of Canada and now when I set a post I get bounced mail "sent 
> by a non-member to a member only list"  what gives?
>  
> N Wolcott  nwolcott2 at post.harvard.edu <mailto:nwolcott2 at post.harvard.edu>
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Project Gutenberg of Canada
> Website: http://www.projectgutenberg.ca/
> List: pgcanada at lists.pglaf.org
> Archives: http://lists.pglaf.org/private.cgi/pgcanada/


From hart at pglaf.org  Fri Jan 14 11:42:47 2005
From: hart at pglaf.org (Michael Hart)
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 11:42:47 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [PGCanada] Text management/formatting (was: Moving ahead with
	PGCanada)
In-Reply-To: <41E81E10.7010500@pglaf.org>
References: <1ec3401e8fa1.1e8fa11ec340@ncf.ca>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0501140940240.10713@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
	<41E81E10.7010500@pglaf.org>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.60.0501141136010.6266@pglaf.org>


On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, James Linden wrote:

>  Assuming we have 15,000 items (as MH says), which we actually do NOT have, 
. . . .

If you find any discrepancies with the count, please let me know in detail,
and I will take them up with Brett Fishburne and George Davis, who do the
official count every week.  Sometimes they disagree for a day or two, but it
is always balanced in a few days, and usually a correction and/or comment
appears in the next PT1 Weekly Newsletter.

According to their count, which they agreed on this week, we should now
have over 15,050 titles, as individually listed each week in PT2 of the
Weekly Newsletter, and the Monthly Newsletter, written by George.

Please send me any comments, suggestions, additions, corrections, etc.,
you may have.


Thanks!


mh



From hart at pglaf.org  Fri Jan 14 12:07:41 2005
From: hart at pglaf.org (Michael Hart)
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 12:07:41 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [PGCanada] [gutvol-d] Wired Magazine "gets it" on copyright (fwd)
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.60.0501141206580.8774@pglaf.org>


Resent-Subject: [gutvol-d] Wired Magazine "gets it" on copyright

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.01/view.html?pg=5


-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
gutvol-d mailing list
gutvol-d at lists.pglaf.org
http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d

From collin at xs4all.nl  Fri Jan 14 14:00:16 2005
From: collin at xs4all.nl (Branko Collin)
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 23:00:16 +0100
Subject: [PGCanada] Re: [PG-EU] [gutvol-d] Wired Magazine "gets it" on
	copyright (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.60.0501141206580.8774@pglaf.org>
Message-ID: <41E84F00.10170.2D5F6F2@localhost>

On 14 Jan 2005, at 12:07, Michael Hart wrote:

> Resent-Subject: [gutvol-d] Wired Magazine "gets it" on copyright
> 
> http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.01/view.html?pg=5

I am not sure I agree. That's not Wired that gets it, that's Lawrence 
Lessig, a columnist, and he already "got it" a while back. (Read 
<http://free-culture.org/remixes/> for some chilling stories.)

-- 
branko collin
collin at xs4all.nl


From sly at victoria.tc.ca  Sat Jan 15 01:30:22 2005
From: sly at victoria.tc.ca (Andrew Sly)
Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 01:30:22 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [PGCanada] Michael hart says PG Canada needs help 
In-Reply-To: <000501c4f9ce$fbdc1420$1f77c3d1@z7c2b6>
References: <000501c4f9ce$fbdc1420$1f77c3d1@z7c2b6>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501150111250.22578@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>

Hello Marjorie,
Thanks for your message.

The books you mention sound like they would be wonderful
additions to PGCanada. We just have to get the whole system
actually in place and running so we have somewhere to
put them. :)

I get the feeling that people who are on this list have
all (including myself) been looking around, asking "how can
I help? Who can tell me what needs to be done?"

So what does PG Canada need?

It needs some volunteers to go ahead and make things happen.

(From a volunteer point of view, it can take more time
and effort to isolate a task, and describe it to someone
else than it would to just go ahead and do it.)

I'll encourage all participants of this list to send me
ideas of what they perceive needs to be done, and I'll
volunteer to prioritize them, and get a list of minimum
basics set out.

Andrew

On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Mfulton wrote:

> I can offer only to prepare a book in plain text from time to time.  I sent
> to PG Australia three of charles Williams' novels, and Gertrude Bell's
> letters. in the last two years.  I am midway through "The Great Lone Land".
> I thought I might later do the biography of Lord Minto (published 1935) by
> John Buchan (died 1940).  Would these be suitable?
>
> Please tell me what is the status quo with PG Canada, and what does it need?
> Marjorie Fulton


From sly at victoria.tc.ca  Sat Jan 15 02:22:19 2005
From: sly at victoria.tc.ca (Andrew Sly)
Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 02:22:19 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [PGCanada] Text management/formatting (was: Moving ahead with
	PGCanada)
In-Reply-To: <41E81E10.7010500@pglaf.org>
References: <1ec3401e8fa1.1e8fa11ec340@ncf.ca>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0501140940240.10713@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
	<41E81E10.7010500@pglaf.org>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501150220120.22578@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>


James:

Thanks for sharing more with us regarding what your UniBook
system is like.

However, we don't need to get to carried away yet.

I'd like to point out (with all due respect) that many people
have developed a "perfect markup system" for electronic
books, and then become frustrated when it doesn't catch on
with many (or any) other people. That's just the way things go.

However, I am willing to put plenty of effort into this as
a "proof-of-concept" of what a PG-type effort can be like.
I do sincerely hope it will not be just another "let's reformat
PG texts to our own specifications" effort.

What I would ask for right now, in the beta stage, is a documented
markup that we can use, and the ability to consistently produce a
PG-type plain text file from it.

I know that XML has the promise of all sorts of wonderful possibilities,
but let's leave that for the middle term.

>>My system uses psuedo markup

I'm curious what you mean by _psuedo_ markup. I'd love to take
a look at it soon.

>> As long as the content is imported into UniBook using this syntax

Which brings up the inevitable possibilities of human error in
getting the syntax wrong, or enclosing incorrect material within
syntactical delimiters.

>>should I mention some of the other cool things that can be done

I'll put it on a list of future plans...


Thanks,
Andrew

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, James Linden wrote:

>
>    First off, Andrew is correct -- I do not want my project, UniBook, to
> be under any sort of PG umbrella -- I wrote it for a far bigger purpose.
> PG is just one of many projects that can make use of it. I have no
> problem providing the source code (once I clean it up a bit) under an
> open source license.
>
>    My system uses psuedo markup, and is actually _easier_ to do than
> PG's vanilla text (in my opinion). I still have to write full
> documentation on the syntax, something I've held off doing because of
> aforementioned political BS.
>
>    As long as the content is imported into UniBook using this syntax, it
> can be automatically parsed with accuracy. Obviously, all imports would
> be vetted by humans, but that'd be a minimal amount of work.
>
>    I should mention that the demo at ibiblio.org/edison is very rough,
> and doesn't have all the formats support that I've actually written and
> have backed up on CD. That CD also has the search engine, browse by
> title/author/date/genre/LOC heading/style, etc.
>
>    When I last worked on the code (over a year ago), I had full output
> support for 6 formats, and beta level output for another 3. There are 4
> more still on my list to write after those 3 beta ones are finished.
> Once a text is in the system, outputing takes an average of 1/2 second
> per format (TXT and XML are much faster, but TEI and PDF are a bit
> slower). So, assuming the code is done for all 13 formats, that'd take
> less than 7 seconds to (re)generate all formats for each text (assuming
> the text is 1MB in size) in the archive. It averages out (based on
> current texts in PG) to be about 3 seconds per text, because many of
> them are well under 1MB.
>
>    Assuming we have 15,000 items (as MH says), which we actually do NOT
> have, that'd take about 32 hrs to regenerate the entire library in 13
> formats.
>
>    Adding new output formats is very easy -- it's just a PHP class with
> a single required function which accepts one parameter -- the document
> content. What that function does is irrelevent as long as it returns the
> final output or filename as a string. This means it can either build the
> output itself, or call an external program, etc.
>
>    Let's say that PG's desired master format is TEI, UniBook can output
> it as mentioned. If that TEI spec every changes, we just have to change
> the output function, and regenerate the archive in only that format.
>
>    Maintaining the archive becomes child's play as well -- make any
> edits to the database record(s) that are needed, then re-generate the
> output formats. This makes it extremely easy to implement a user
> submitted error corrections system which "admins" can just verify items
> to be changed, instead of having to go through the files manually, etc.
>
>    Here's where UniBook currently stands:
>
>     1) Need some code cleanup (I pretty much have to do that since I
> wrote it) After that, we can CVS/SVN it for cooperative maintainance.
>
>     2) Need administration interface (web based) for importing files,
> confirming imports, managing extra catalog data (LOC headings, etc). I
> can handle this as well if needed.
>
>     3) Need GUI for building the importable files. I've written several
> different versions of such an app in VB, but it really needs to be done
> in Java, so it's portable as an app, and embeddable as an applet for
> web-based interface. This is where I need help -- I don't know enough
> Java to write GUIs from scratch. I can provide a fully functioning VB
> GUI (with code if desired) that would just need to be reproduced in
> Java. The whole interface is relatively simple - a WYSIWYG with limited
> functionality.
>
>    Once a GUI is written, it'd be child's play to get ALL of PG's
> current  text imported into the system - by volunteers interested in
> doing it - along with all new text being done with it natively.
>
>    Oh yeah, should I mention some of the other cool things that can be
> done with this system as the base? Like automatically generating CD ISO
> images for any combination of texts? For example: we can do a CD for
> each year's new/updated texts, without wasting space on ones that
> haven't changed. Or, we can generate a CD image for all of Shakespeare,
> etc. People can build their own list and have an ISO automatically
> generated for them to download, with the texts in the format(s) of their
> choice...
>
>    ...the list goes on and on...
>
> -- James
> _______________________________________________
> Project Gutenberg of Canada
> Website: http://www.projectgutenberg.ca/
> List: pgcanada at lists.pglaf.org
> Archives: http://lists.pglaf.org/private.cgi/pgcanada/
>


From sly at victoria.tc.ca  Sat Jan 15 13:27:21 2005
From: sly at victoria.tc.ca (Andrew Sly)
Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 13:27:21 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [PGCanada] Copyright clearance for PG Canada
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501151316340.11183@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>



Copyright clearance for PG Canada is one of the issues that needs
more attention.

I believe Wallace has the most interest and understanading of
Canadian copyright terms among the people on this list, but I
thought I'd post this message here for general feedback.

As the concept of public domain can be nebulous (I don't
believe it is actually defined in our copyright laws),
I was thinking we might want to prepare a list of different
criterea we could use for copyright clearances, something
along the lines of:
http://www.gutenberg.org/howto/copyright-howto

I was thinking, for our most often-used rule, something like:

1) An item which was produced by one author, whose date of
death was over 50 years ago, where that date is common
bibliographic knowledge, and the text was published
during his lifetime.


Some other possible situations could be:

2) Same as #1, only the text was published posthumously,
but still more than 50 years ago.

3) Same as #1, only we have to do research to find the
author's date of death, in which case we should keep
a record of our source for that information.

4) An item published anonymously or pseudonymously
over 50 years ago, where a reasonable search cannot
determine the author's true identity.

5) An item where the author is known, but his date of death
cannot be reasonably determined, and the work was published
a certain number of years ago. (This would be for mid-nineteenth
century and older works, where one can assume that, given
a human life-span, the author could not have lived past a
date of 50 years ago. I don't know how long ago this
number should be.)

6) An item of joint authorship, where the terms of #1 apply,
and the last surviving author died over 50 years ago.
(This would also apply for anyone contributing to the
intellectual content of the item, such as an editor or
a translator.) #2-5 may also be applicable to works of
joint authorship.

7) An item which was published by a Canadian government
department over 50 years ago.



I would suggest that for our "beta-stage" we just concern ourselves
with texts which present no difficulties or uncertainties in
copyright clearance.

Andrew


From gbuchana at rogers.com  Sat Jan 15 13:57:28 2005
From: gbuchana at rogers.com (Gardner Buchanan)
Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 16:57:28 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [PGCanada] Copyright clearance for PG Canada
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501151316340.11183@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
Message-ID: <XFMail.050115165728.gbuchana@rogers.com>



On 21:27:21 Andrew Sly wrote:
> 
> 5) An item where the author is known, but his date of death
> cannot be reasonably determined, and the work was published
> a certain number of years ago. (This would be for mid-nineteenth
> century and older works, where one can assume that, given
> a human life-span, the author could not have lived past a
> date of 50 years ago. I don't know how long ago this
> number should be.)
> 

If you assume the age at death could have been as high as 100
and the age at publishing as low as 12, you wind up with 1867.

90 years and 20 years gives 1885.

Anything that falls under this rule would be a shoo-in for
PG USA, and it would be simplest to just post it there.



============================================================
Gardner Buchanan                       <gbuchana at rogers.com>
Ottawa, ON             FreeBSD: Where you want to go. Today.


From sly at victoria.tc.ca  Sat Jan 15 16:00:57 2005
From: sly at victoria.tc.ca (Andrew Sly)
Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 16:00:57 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [PGCanada] Copyright clearance for PG Canada
In-Reply-To: <XFMail.050115165728.gbuchana@rogers.com>
References: <XFMail.050115165728.gbuchana@rogers.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501151545540.12843@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>

Yes Gardner, you're right.

But my understanding is that, at least for some volunteers,
one goal is to include as much as possible from PG-us
into the PG Canada system. A rule like the one below
would facilitate some of that.

Given the type of role model some are hoping PG Canada can
be as promoter of a vibrant public domain, I'd rather have
precise rules for what goes into the collection, rather than
just saying "oh, I'm sure this book is ok", as you will
see some online sources do.

Andrew


On Sat, 15 Jan 2005, Gardner Buchanan wrote:

>
> On 21:27:21 Andrew Sly wrote:
> >
> > 5) An item where the author is known, but his date of death
> > cannot be reasonably determined, and the work was published
> > a certain number of years ago. (This would be for mid-nineteenth
> > century and older works, where one can assume that, given
> > a human life-span, the author could not have lived past a
> > date of 50 years ago. I don't know how long ago this
> > number should be.)
> >
>
> If you assume the age at death could have been as high as 100
> and the age at publishing as low as 12, you wind up with 1867.
>
> 90 years and 20 years gives 1885.
>
> Anything that falls under this rule would be a shoo-in for
> PG USA, and it would be simplest to just post it there.
>


From ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca  Sat Jan 15 17:26:47 2005
From: ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca (Wallace J.McLean)
Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 20:26:47 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] Copyright clearance for PG Canada
Message-ID: <20827320883a.20883a208273@ncf.ca>

----- Original Message -----
From: Andrew Sly <sly at victoria.tc.ca>
Date: Saturday, January 15, 2005 4:27 pm
Subject: [PGCanada] Copyright clearance for PG Canada

> As the concept of public domain can be nebulous (I don't
> believe it is actually defined in our copyright laws)

It's not actually defined in most countries' copyright laws. More 
worrying, a lot of legal scholars ignore the concept in works on 
copyright, or manage to obfuscate it beyond recognition.


From ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca  Sat Jan 15 17:29:46 2005
From: ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca (Wallace J.McLean)
Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 20:29:46 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] Copyright clearance for PG Canada
Message-ID: <2060e7207c73.207c732060e7@ncf.ca>

----- Original Message -----
From: Gardner Buchanan <gbuchana at rogers.com>
Date: Saturday, January 15, 2005 4:57 pm
Subject: RE: [PGCanada] Copyright clearance for PG Canada

> If you assume the age at death could have been as high as 100
> and the age at publishing as low as 12, you wind up with 1867.
> 
> 90 years and 20 years gives 1885.
> 
> Anything that falls under this rule would be a shoo-in for
> PG USA, and it would be simplest to just post it there.

It would be nice to have it stored in a Canadian collection, though, 
too. But this will provide a good argument to policy-makers to give 
Canadians a failsafe rule, if 19th-century Canadiana has to be 
digitized in the US because of a lacuna in our own laws!

However, we may have a way out. We need to look at whether the 1924 
term extension has ever been judicially commented on, and whether it's 
been found to be retroactive or not?




From sly at victoria.tc.ca  Sun Jan 16 00:59:33 2005
From: sly at victoria.tc.ca (Andrew Sly)
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 00:59:33 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [PGCanada] Copyright clearance for PG Canada
In-Reply-To: <2060e7207c73.207c732060e7@ncf.ca>
References: <2060e7207c73.207c732060e7@ncf.ca>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501152237230.7577@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>


What a wonderful idea! I never would have thought of that.

What was the term under Canadian rules before 1924?
One source I find online says that the Canadian Copyright Act
of 1875 had a term of 28 years. Even allowing one renewal
period (as in the states), that could mean pre-1924 could
be considered public domain in Canada, if the 1924 changes
were not retroactive... However, this is of course, idle
speculation.

Hmm... I'm starting to wonder it would be beneficial to
make the time to go look through microfilm of old newspapers
from 1924 to see what they might have to say about this...

I would recommend that anyone interested in Canadian copyright history
take a look at an article I stumbled across while searching:

A history of dramatic copyright and performance right in Canada to 1924.
www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/TRIC/bin/get7.cgi?directory=vol22_2/&filename=oneill.html


Andrew


On Sat, 15 Jan 2005, Wallace J.McLean wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Gardner Buchanan <gbuchana at rogers.com>
> Date: Saturday, January 15, 2005 4:57 pm
> Subject: RE: [PGCanada] Copyright clearance for PG Canada
>
> > If you assume the age at death could have been as high as 100
> > and the age at publishing as low as 12, you wind up with 1867.
> >
> > 90 years and 20 years gives 1885.
> >
> > Anything that falls under this rule would be a shoo-in for
> > PG USA, and it would be simplest to just post it there.
>
> It would be nice to have it stored in a Canadian collection, though,
> too. But this will provide a good argument to policy-makers to give
> Canadians a failsafe rule, if 19th-century Canadiana has to be
> digitized in the US because of a lacuna in our own laws!
>
> However, we may have a way out. We need to look at whether the 1924
> term extension has ever been judicially commented on, and whether it's
> been found to be retroactive or not?
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Project Gutenberg of Canada
> Website: http://www.projectgutenberg.ca/
> List: pgcanada at lists.pglaf.org
> Archives: http://lists.pglaf.org/private.cgi/pgcanada/
>


From ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca  Sun Jan 16 09:37:46 2005
From: ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca (Wallace J.McLean)
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 12:37:46 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] Copyright clearance for PG Canada
Message-ID: <2145892130c6.2130c6214589@ncf.ca>

----- Original Message -----
From: Andrew Sly <sly at victoria.tc.ca>
Date: Sunday, January 16, 2005 3:59 am
Subject: Re: RE: [PGCanada] Copyright clearance for PG Canada

> Hmm... I'm starting to wonder it would be beneficial to
> make the time to go look through microfilm of old newspapers
> from 1924 to see what they might have to say about this...

The direct method of attack would be to check the Canadian statutes 
judicially considered materials at a good law library, and from there 
into the law reports.


From darryl at moores.ca  Sun Jan 16 12:21:47 2005
From: darryl at moores.ca (Darryl Moore)
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 15:21:47 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] Copyright clearance for PG Canada
In-Reply-To: <2145892130c6.2130c6214589@ncf.ca>
References: <2145892130c6.2130c6214589@ncf.ca>
Message-ID: <41EACCDB.8020601@moores.ca>

David Fewer of the CIPPIC wants to talk next week about ways in which 
CIPPIC can help PGCanada. Do you think this might be one way they could 
help? Wallace, do you have any interest in participating in a conference 
call with David? Exact date and time TBA.

Wallace J.McLean wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Andrew Sly <sly at victoria.tc.ca>
> Date: Sunday, January 16, 2005 3:59 am
> Subject: Re: RE: [PGCanada] Copyright clearance for PG Canada
> 
> 
>>Hmm... I'm starting to wonder it would be beneficial to
>>make the time to go look through microfilm of old newspapers
>>from 1924 to see what they might have to say about this...
> 
> 
> The direct method of attack would be to check the Canadian statutes 
> judicially considered materials at a good law library, and from there 
> into the law reports.
> _______________________________________________
> Project Gutenberg of Canada
> Website: http://www.projectgutenberg.ca/
> List: pgcanada at lists.pglaf.org
> Archives: http://lists.pglaf.org/private.cgi/pgcanada/
> 



From ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca  Sun Jan 16 14:11:25 2005
From: ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca (Wallace J.McLean)
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 17:11:25 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] Copyright clearance for PG Canada
Message-ID: <2188d82135c0.2135c02188d8@ncf.ca>

Whoa, moderately good minds think alike! ;)

I just got online to fire an email off to David Fewer! And heck, if a 
conference call saves me an expedition to the upper floors of Fauteux 
Hall, I'm, like, totally there.



----- Original Message -----
From: Darryl Moore <darryl at moores.ca>
Date: Sunday, January 16, 2005 3:21 pm
Subject: Re: [PGCanada] Copyright clearance for PG Canada

> David Fewer of the CIPPIC wants to talk next week about ways in 
> which 
> CIPPIC can help PGCanada. Do you think this might be one way they 
> could 
> help? Wallace, do you have any interest in participating in a 
> conference 
> call with David? Exact date and time TBA.
> 
> Wallace J.McLean wrote:
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Andrew Sly <sly at victoria.tc.ca>
> > Date: Sunday, January 16, 2005 3:59 am
> > Subject: Re: RE: [PGCanada] Copyright clearance for PG Canada
> > 
> > 
> >>Hmm... I'm starting to wonder it would be beneficial to
> >>make the time to go look through microfilm of old newspapers
> >>from 1924 to see what they might have to say about this...
> > 
> > 
> > The direct method of attack would be to check the Canadian 
> statutes 
> > judicially considered materials at a good law library, and from 
> there 
> > into the law reports.
> > _______________________________________________
> > Project Gutenberg of Canada
> > Website: http://www.projectgutenberg.ca/
> > List: pgcanada at lists.pglaf.org
> > Archives: http://lists.pglaf.org/private.cgi/pgcanada/
> > 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Project Gutenberg of Canada
> Website: http://www.projectgutenberg.ca/
> List: pgcanada at lists.pglaf.org
> Archives: http://lists.pglaf.org/private.cgi/pgcanada/
> 


From sly at victoria.tc.ca  Tue Jan 18 12:18:04 2005
From: sly at victoria.tc.ca (Andrew Sly)
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 12:18:04 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [PGCanada] Canadian copyright for corporations
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.58.0411091100330.4210@calcutta.flora.ca>
References: <cd514d20ad.d20adcd514@ncf.ca> <4190E32C.8030707@moores.ca>
	<Pine.LNX.4.58.0411091043510.4210@calcutta.flora.ca>
	<4190E6E5.1060507@moores.ca>
	<Pine.LNX.4.58.0411091050290.4210@calcutta.flora.ca>
	<4190E8B3.3010300@moores.ca>
	<Pine.LNX.4.58.0411091100330.4210@calcutta.flora.ca>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501181202240.4487@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>


Looking through old emails, I came across this message from Russell
which I can now respond to...

On Tue, 9 Nov 2004, Russell McOrmond wrote:

>   Other than for photographs I still don't know the term for corporations.
> Are they considered joint authorship of the directors of the corporation?
> If so, how to we determine this to appropriately return these works to the
> public domain?
>


In the book "Canadian Copyright Law, 3rd edition" by Lesley Ellen
Harris, (which is, by the way, very pro-copyright in its tone),
it says that a distinction must be made between the author and the
owner of copyright when they are not the same "person". The duration
of copyright is still determined by the date of the author's death.

Here's an excerpt:

  Note that even where employers own copyright in their employees'
  creations, the employees are still the authors of these creations.
  This is important with respect to the duration of copyright
  protection, and also with respect to moral rights.

So I take it that, even though a corporation may own copyright in
a work, as it was made in the course of employment, or was aquired
by other means, the expiration of copyright is still tied to the
author's life.

That makes me wonder then, that in a work published by and
copyrighted by a corporation, if an author is not credited,
and cannot be determined, could I look to acertain a copyright
term on the basis of annonymous authorship?

Andrew


From ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca  Tue Jan 18 12:55:01 2005
From: ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca (Wallace J.McLean)
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 15:55:01 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] Canadian copyright for corporations
Message-ID: <250c6c257195.257195250c6c@ncf.ca>

----- Original Message -----
From: Andrew Sly <sly at victoria.tc.ca>
Date: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 3:18 pm
Subject: [PGCanada] Canadian copyright for corporations

> That makes me wonder then, that in a work published by and
> copyrighted by a corporation, if an author is not credited,
> and cannot be determined, could I look to acertain a copyright
> term on the basis of annonymous authorship?

Yes: http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/unlocatable/other/2-b.pdf




From ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca  Tue Jan 18 12:56:46 2005
From: ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca (Wallace J.McLean)
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 15:56:46 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] Canadian copyright for corporations
Message-ID: <25524f2525cd.2525cd25524f@ncf.ca>

----- Original Message -----
From: Andrew Sly <sly at victoria.tc.ca>
Date: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 3:18 pm
Subject: [PGCanada] Canadian copyright for corporations

> In the book "Canadian Copyright Law, 3rd edition" by Lesley Ellen
> Harris, (which is, by the way, very pro-copyright in its tone),
> it says that a distinction must be made between the author and the
> owner of copyright when they are not the same "person". The duration
> of copyright is still determined by the date of the author's death.

If the personal author is known. If the personal author's true identity 
is not known, and can't be determined, then publication+50 kicks in, as 
confirmed in that Copyright Board decision I cited previously.

I'd like to see if the courts have commented on that provision as well.






From russell at flora.ca  Tue Jan 18 14:42:13 2005
From: russell at flora.ca (Russell McOrmond)
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 17:42:13 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [PGCanada] Canadian copyright for corporations
In-Reply-To: <250c6c257195.257195250c6c@ncf.ca>
References: <250c6c257195.257195250c6c@ncf.ca>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.58.0501181739390.21893@calcutta.flora.ca>

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, Wallace J.McLean wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Andrew Sly <sly at victoria.tc.ca>
> Date: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 3:18 pm
> Subject: [PGCanada] Canadian copyright for corporations
> 
> > That makes me wonder then, that in a work published by and
> > copyrighted by a corporation, if an author is not credited,
> > and cannot be determined, could I look to acertain a copyright
> > term on the basis of annonymous authorship?
> 
> Yes: http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/unlocatable/other/2-b.pdf

  Are you suggesting that anonymous works (which works with corporate 
ownership tend to be) have only a 50 year term?

  I am surprised that corporations are not then "disclosing" authorship
when term is near to expire, disclosing the author who died last given
that in joint authorship the "public domain public good countdown" starts
when the last author dies (or is offed... I think the morbidity of public
benefit from authors death should be eradicated).

-- 
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> 
 Happy Hacking, Eh!    http://www.digital-copyright.ca/blog/2 (My BLOG)
 Sign the Petition Users' Rights! http://digital-copyright.ca/petition/


From ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca  Tue Jan 18 14:53:20 2005
From: ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca (Wallace J.McLean)
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 17:53:20 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] Canadian copyright for corporations
Message-ID: <25aff8258a3a.258a3a25aff8@ncf.ca>

----- Original Message -----
From: Russell McOrmond <russell at flora.ca>
Date: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 5:42 pm
Subject: Re: [PGCanada] Canadian copyright for corporations

> > > That makes me wonder then, that in a work published by and
> > > copyrighted by a corporation, if an author is not credited,
> > > and cannot be determined, could I look to acertain a copyright
> > > term on the basis of annonymous authorship?
> > 
> > Yes: http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/unlocatable/other/2-b.pdf
> 
>  Are you suggesting that anonymous works (which works with 
> corporate ownership tend to be) have only a 50 year term?

Under Canadian law, yes, if the personal author or authors are, and 
remain, unknown.

> I am surprised that corporations are not then "disclosing" 
> authorship when term is near to expire, disclosing the author who 
> died last given

In most cases, that corporate owner itself won't even know.

> that in joint authorship the "public domain public good countdown" 
> starts when the last author dies (or is offed... I think the 
> morbidity of public benefit from authors death should be eradicated).

"morbidity of public benefit from authors death" < explain this phrase.




From sly at victoria.tc.ca  Tue Jan 18 14:58:25 2005
From: sly at victoria.tc.ca (Andrew Sly)
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 14:58:25 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [PGCanada] Canadian copyright for corporations
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.58.0501181739390.21893@calcutta.flora.ca>
References: <250c6c257195.257195250c6c@ncf.ca>
	<Pine.LNX.4.58.0501181739390.21893@calcutta.flora.ca>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501181453410.17304@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>



On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, Russell McOrmond wrote:

> On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, Wallace J.McLean wrote:
>
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Andrew Sly <sly at victoria.tc.ca>
> > Date: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 3:18 pm
> > Subject: [PGCanada] Canadian copyright for corporations
> >
> > > That makes me wonder then, that in a work published by and
> > > copyrighted by a corporation, if an author is not credited,
> > > and cannot be determined, could I look to acertain a copyright
> > > term on the basis of annonymous authorship?
> >
> > Yes: http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/unlocatable/other/2-b.pdf
>
>   Are you suggesting that anonymous works (which works with corporate
> ownership tend to be) have only a 50 year term?

Yes. Here's the relevant portion of the Copyright Act:


   6.1 Except as provided in section 6.2, where the identity of the
   author of a work is unknown, copyright in the work shall subsist for
   whichever of the following terms ends earlier:

     (a) a term consisting of the remainder of the calendar year of the
     first publication of the work and a period of fifty years following
     the end of that calendar year, and

     (b) a term consisting of the remainder of the calendar year of the
     making of the work and a period of seventy-five years following the
     end of that calendar year,

   but where, during that term, the author's identity becomes commonly
   known, the term provided in section 6 applies.


>   I am surprised that corporations are not then "disclosing" authorship
> when term is near to expire, disclosing the author who died last given
> that in joint authorship the "public domain public good countdown" starts
> when the last author dies (or is offed... I think the morbidity of public
> benefit from authors death should be eradicated).


That's what I see as a potential challenge for PG Canada. If we do
clear anything under a rule based on this provision, how do we
prepare for the small chance of someone coming forward with an
author's name for a previously considered anonnymous work?

This is the type of situation where copyright advice from people more
with more authority will more very helpful.

Andrew


From ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca  Tue Jan 18 15:03:28 2005
From: ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca (Wallace J.McLean)
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 18:03:28 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] Canadian copyright for corporations
Message-ID: <25cabf258bf9.258bf925cabf@ncf.ca>

----- Original Message -----
From: Andrew Sly <sly at victoria.tc.ca>
Date: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 5:58 pm
Subject: Re: [PGCanada] Canadian copyright for corporations

>   but where, during that term, the author's identity becomes commonly
>   known, the term provided in section 6 applies.
>
> That's what I see as a potential challenge for PG Canada. If we do
> clear anything under a rule based on this provision, how do we
> prepare for the small chance of someone coming forward with an
> author's name for a previously considered anonnymous work?

"A previously considered anonnymous work" can only become something 
other than "anonymous" during that fifty year post-publication term. 
("during that term..."

Since a PG Canada can't assume public domain status until 
publication+50 has run out, and the owner of copyright can only claim 
the life+ term before publication+50 runs out, a PG Canada doesn't have 
to worry one little bit. If the author's identity becomes known on New 
Year's Eve, then the work just continues under copyright and we 
wouldn't have been able to use it before then anyway. If the author's 
identity becomes known of New Year's Day, then it doesn't change the 
fact that copyright has expired.






From sly at victoria.tc.ca  Tue Jan 18 15:20:57 2005
From: sly at victoria.tc.ca (Andrew Sly)
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 15:20:57 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [PGCanada] Canadian copyright for corporations
In-Reply-To: <25cabf258bf9.258bf925cabf@ncf.ca>
References: <25cabf258bf9.258bf925cabf@ncf.ca>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501181510220.17304@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>


Beautiful! Thank you Wallace. I should have realized that,
if I had thought it out.

Then the question reloves around your use of the phrase
"the author's identity becomes known". What needs to be
considered done for that to have happened?

For the purposes of copyright clearance for PG Canada,
how much research needs to be done to show that an
author's name has not been made public?
(Copyright laws that have you trying to prove that
something has _not_ been done are seldom any fun.)

Andrew

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, Wallace J.McLean wrote:

> "A previously considered anonnymous work" can only become something
> other than "anonymous" during that fifty year post-publication term.
> ("during that term..."
>
> Since a PG Canada can't assume public domain status until
> publication+50 has run out, and the owner of copyright can only claim
> the life+ term before publication+50 runs out, a PG Canada doesn't have
> to worry one little bit. If the author's identity becomes known on New
> Year's Eve, then the work just continues under copyright and we
> wouldn't have been able to use it before then anyway. If the author's
> identity becomes known of New Year's Day, then it doesn't change the
> fact that copyright has expired.



From ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca  Tue Jan 18 15:38:45 2005
From: ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca (Wallace J.McLean)
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 18:38:45 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] Canadian copyright for corporations
Message-ID: <25b74825bd4d.25bd4d25b748@ncf.ca>

----- Original Message -----
From: Andrew Sly <sly at victoria.tc.ca>
Date: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 6:20 pm
Subject: Re: [PGCanada] Canadian copyright for corporations

> Then the question reloves around your use of the phrase
> "the author's identity becomes known". What needs to be
> considered done for that to have happened?

That's why we need to see if there's case law on point, above and 
beyond the Copyright Board decision I noted earlier. We have to go back 
and look at the current section and its predecessors to see if there is 
precedent, and a look at comparable US, UK, Ireland, Australia, and New 
Zealand decisions, if any, wouldn't be bad either.


> For the purposes of copyright clearance for PG Canada,
> how much research needs to be done to show that an
> author's name has not been made public?

Can't be definitive, but I'd start with the AMICUS database, the 
copyright database, for what it's worth (not much), Google, and the 
standard literary reference books. There's another route that may be 
required, but I'm not going to post that publicly.


> (Copyright laws that have you trying to prove that
> something has _not_ been done are seldom any fun.)

Any laws that do that...




From ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca  Tue Jan 18 17:07:56 2005
From: ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca (Wallace J.McLean)
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 20:07:56 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] FWD: [d@DCC] Manitoba Life and Times
Message-ID: <25917c25ebe1.25ebe125917c@ncf.ca>

Forwarded from Digital Copyright Canada

>From   John Lange
Sent  Tuesday, January 18, 2005 6:54 pm 
To  Copyright DiscussionsCc    
Subject  [d at DCC] Manitoba Life and Times 

Manitobia: Life and Times (http://www.manitobia.org/) is a new
initiative of the Manitoba Library Consortium. (not much on the web site
yet but read the PDF document for details)

"The project will make a wealth of material on the history of Manitoba
available to everyone."

In short, the project aims to take a variety of old documents (mainly
newspapers) digitize them using OCR, and make the available in a
searchable database.

Interesting in terms of discussions here because; 1) if copyright was
not limited this project wouldn't be possible; and 2) under the
recommendations of the Heritage committee, all content will be presumed
to be copyrighted and schools will pay a levy in order to access it. 

-- 
John Lange


From sly at victoria.tc.ca  Thu Jan 20 16:13:36 2005
From: sly at victoria.tc.ca (Andrew Sly)
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 16:13:36 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [PGCanada] Visions for Project Gutenberg of Canada
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501201610310.6120@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>

Before returning to the details of what there is to be done
in the short term, here's somthing of an overall view.

Here is a list of visions of hopes for what PG Canada could
be, as gathered from the volunteers working to bring it together,
restated in my own words. Suggestions and corrections are
welcome.

Everyone involved is bringing his own ideas to the process,
and so far, I believe these are not incompatible.

We hope Project Gutenberg of Canada will be:

--A repository for a wide range of Canadian literature and
history texts, in multiple languages, as well as texts
from many other parts of the world.

--A fully integrated system for the production, storage,
automatic conversion, and distribution of ebooks, utilizing xml.
(Including machine translation to other languages and audio
books.)

--A living proof of the value of a vibrant public domain in Canada,
that could be used as an example to argue against a possible
term extension of copyright.

--A project that will attract many volunteers, including a Canadian
Distributed Proofing site, that will ensure it keeps growing.

--An entity that will build alliances with other institutions
and projects across the country that are interested in digitizing
items in the Canadian public domain.




From Earnscliffe at aol.com  Thu Jan 20 14:03:41 2005
From: Earnscliffe at aol.com (Earnscliffe at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 17:03:41 EST
Subject: [PGCanada] Help
Message-ID: <cd.20275787.2f2184bd@aol.com>

Sure!

Alan
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From hart at pglaf.org  Fri Jan 21 10:37:34 2005
From: hart at pglaf.org (Michael Hart)
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 10:37:34 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [PGCanada] Visions for Project Gutenberg of Canada
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501201610310.6120@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
References: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501201610310.6120@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.60.0501211036160.14343@pglaf.org>


FYI:  I read all the PGCanda messages, but feel I should NOT
make any but the most obvious suggestions, and only once;
in case you wondered why you weren't hearing from me a lot.

Michael



From sly at victoria.tc.ca  Wed Jan 26 13:15:13 2005
From: sly at victoria.tc.ca (Andrew Sly)
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 13:15:13 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [PGCanada] Prospective volunteers
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501261314330.29395@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>


I've exchanged emails with a couple of volunteers who have come
to PG Canada asking "What can I do to help?"

I would love it if anyone asking this could be directed to
a place where they could actively contribute something.
However, as a group, I don't believe we are at that stage
yet.

The main expectation seems to be that volunteers would like
to be preparing books--which only makes sense.

I can tell people inquiring that we won't we ready for new
content for a couple of months, and suggesting some of the
current issues that seem to need attention as things they
might be able to help with.

Are there any other suggestions from people here?

Andrew


From ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca  Wed Jan 26 13:23:42 2005
From: ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca (Wallace J.McLean)
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 16:23:42 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] Prospective volunteers
Message-ID: <332ac4333d7a.333d7a332ac4@ncf.ca>

----- Original Message -----
From: Andrew Sly <sly at victoria.tc.ca>
Date: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 4:15 pm
Subject: [PGCanada] Prospective volunteers

> Are there any other suggestions from people here?

I would suggest the following:

1) Anyone interested in volunteering, whether pre- or post-startup, 
should come forward, and state their interests and abilities to 
contribute. What do youse have in mind? Where can your talents best be 
employed? Who can and should you be collaborating with on those tasks?

2) Them that are able and willing to provide help on the extensive list 
of pre-startup tasks should organize themselves. Tallest to shortest? I 
don't know; let's just get tasks assigned and put workers to work on 
the things they can work on.

3) People who just have a vague sense that they would like to provide 
content, can email me, and we'll talk. There's already an informal 
content junta that's thinking ahead to this goal and considering 
possible projects that are clearable under Canadian law. Let's just not 
duplicate each other's work.

4) People in section (3) who haven't already done so, should sign up at 
www.pgdp.net and gain some practical experience in proofing and content-
providing.




From traverso at dm.unipi.it  Wed Jan 26 14:09:28 2005
From: traverso at dm.unipi.it (Carlo Traverso)
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 23:09:28 +0100
Subject: [PGCanada] Prospective volunteers
In-Reply-To: <332ac4333d7a.333d7a332ac4@ncf.ca> (ag737@freenet.carleton.ca)
References: <332ac4333d7a.333d7a332ac4@ncf.ca>
Message-ID: <200501262209.j0QM9Sb16361@posso.dm.unipi.it>

>>>>> "Wallace" == Wallace J McLean <ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca> writes:

    Wallace> ----- Original Message ----- From: Andrew Sly
    Wallace> <sly at victoria.tc.ca> Date: Wednesday, January 26, 2005
    Wallace> 4:15 pm Subject: [PGCanada] Prospective volunteers

    >> Are there any other suggestions from people here?

    Wallace> I would suggest the following:

.................

    Wallace> 4) People in section (3) who haven't already done so,
    Wallace> should sign up at www.pgdp.net and gain some practical
    Wallace> experience in proofing and content- providing.

Don't forget DP-EU, http://dp.rastko.net : they work with life+50
rules, hence fit better with the needs of PG-CA.

Carlo Traverso


From ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca  Thu Jan 27 09:24:11 2005
From: ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca (Wallace J.McLean)
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 12:24:11 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] Prospective volunteers
Message-ID: <34ef8f34bd28.34bd2834ef8f@ncf.ca>


----- Original Message -----
From: Carlo Traverso <traverso at dm.unipi.it>
Date: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 5:09 pm
Subject: Re: [PGCanada] Prospective volunteers

> Don't forget DP-EU, http://dp.rastko.net : they work with life+50
> rules, hence fit better with the needs of PG-CA.

D'oh! Of course! 

How is DP-Eu processing life+ copyright clearances?


From sly at victoria.tc.ca  Thu Jan 27 15:49:03 2005
From: sly at victoria.tc.ca (Andrew Sly)
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 15:49:03 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [PGCanada] Re: PG-Canada / List of tasks to do
In-Reply-To: <3538103548ad.3548ad353810@ncf.ca>
References: <3538103548ad.3548ad353810@ncf.ca>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501271528020.24797@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>


I'd suggest that getting content and finding Public domain books
is not something we need to worry about. Having enough interested
volunteers to help produce them will probably be more of a challenge.

I'll compare here with Project Gutenberg. Right now a bottle-neck
is in having people to post-process the texts coming out of DP.
There are plenty of people ready who could produce page scans
of eligible books faster than they could be processed.

As we will be dealing probably largely with post-1922 books
I don't think it will be too hard to find books that are eligible
for PG Canada.

I admire the philosophy of letting volunteers do what they
are interested in, or even just happen to find copies of.
However, it couldn't hurt to have a list of requested books.

Also, if it helps, I've got a large list of Canadian authors
(or at least from Canadian referance sources) courtesy of
Philip at the New General Catalog of Old Books & Authors
http://www.kingkong.demon.co.uk/ngcoba/ngcoba.htm

In the past, I have contributed a few dozen author names,
missing dates, etc. for his lists, and I'd suggest he would
be a worthwhile ally to have, particularly in the matter of
sharing author birth and death dates.

Andrew

On Thu, 27 Jan 2005, Wallace J.McLean wrote:

>
> > I'd also suggest a list of notable books and their location might be
> a
> > good idea. I know a few people who have a number of books that are
> not
> > likely in the system yet, but really should be. If we could identify
> > what cooperative people, have what books, then we might be able to
> get a
> > higher quality content sooner by prioritizing this list.
>
>
> It's both easy and hard to get a list of eligible dead guys. Easy; just
> use a pre-1955 year as an author name keyword in a library catalogue.
> (You'll also get lots of authors born in 1954, unless you restrict your
> search to imprints <1955 as well.) Hard; you get lots and lots of hits.
>
> What I've been promoting among some of the content-providing cabal is
> this:
>
> Let's concentrate on post-1922 imprints. DP-USA/PG-USA can do anything
> published before this date; let them (and the us that are a part of
> them) deal with those works there. Let's specialize in materials that
> won't be available on the US site for many years to come.
>
> And let's concentrate on works by authors who died more than 50 but
> less than 71 years ago. This is, realistically, the body of work most
> at risk of being lost to copyright extension in Canada. If we can get a
> gazillion such works re-used as public domain works, it makes it
> politically very difficult for the Guvmint to extend the life+term, at
> least not retroactively.
>
> So: on the content side, our major content providers should focus (not
> exclusively, but consciously focus) on post-1923 works by authors who
> died from 1934 to 1954. Next year we move the death dates up a year,
> and so on, and so on.
>
>
>


From ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca  Thu Jan 27 16:12:01 2005
From: ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca (Wallace J.McLean)
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 19:12:01 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] Re: PG-Canada / List of tasks to do
Message-ID: <36104535cde6.35cde6361045@ncf.ca>

----- Original Message -----
From: Andrew Sly <sly at victoria.tc.ca>
Date: Thursday, January 27, 2005 6:49 pm
Subject: [PGCanada] Re: PG-Canada / List of tasks to do

> I'd suggest that getting content and finding Public domain books
> is not something we need to worry about. Having enough interested
> volunteers to help produce them will probably be more of a challenge.

Having enough volunteers for the PP and later stages is the challenge; 
the pre-PP stages won't be a problem.

> As we will be dealing probably largely with post-1922 books
> I don't think it will be too hard to find books that are eligible
> for PG Canada.

I don't either, BUT it would be good to start taking advantage of the 
advantages in our law, where they exist, as soon as possible. If we 
don't start moving on that front, then legislative changes -- I always 
have to go back and strike the word "reform" -- may overtake us.

> I admire the philosophy of letting volunteers do what they
> are interested in, or even just happen to find copies of.
> However, it couldn't hurt to have a list of requested books.

Not at all; I plan on making one!

> Also, if it helps, I've got a large list of Canadian authors
> (or at least from Canadian referance sources) courtesy of
> Philip at the New General Catalog of Old Books & Authors
> http://www.kingkong.demon.co.uk/ngcoba/ngcoba.htm

Ooohhh.... bookmarked!






From jon at noring.name  Thu Jan 27 16:44:12 2005
From: jon at noring.name (Jon Noring)
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 17:44:12 -0700
Subject: Some humble suggestions... Re: [PGCanada] Re: PG-Canada / List of
	tasks to do
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501271528020.24797@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
References: <3538103548ad.3548ad353810@ncf.ca>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0501271528020.24797@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
Message-ID: <10534357890.20050127174412@noring.name>

Andrew Sly wrote:

> I'd suggest that getting content and finding Public domain books
> is not something we need to worry about. Having enough interested
> volunteers to help produce them will probably be more of a challenge.

What interests me is to split up the project into three areas/groups,
each of which can have its own volunteer base, its own group leaders,
and a level of autonomy with the other groups. The three are:

1) Scanning
2) Cataloging and Copyright Clearance
3) Conversion to structured digital text

The first, scanning, can be done independently. It would seek out old
texts to scan which, if public domain, can be placed online. Ask for
donations (with a tax deduction to the donor) of old books which are
otherwise falling apart, chop them, then run them through a sheet feed
scanner. The chopped books would then be put into ziploc bags with a
dessicant (or whatever other method is recommended) and archived away
in case there's interest in rescanning. I think it even possible to ask
Brewster Kahle at the Internet Archive for a donation of sheet feed
scanners in return for donating copies of the scans to IA. These
scanners, even rugged professional level models, are not overly
expensive (not like the orbital or robotic scanners, for example.)

(In other messages, I referred to the scanning project as Distributed
Scanners.)

The second, cataloging/copyright clearance, will take the scans which
have been done, and put together MARC (or equivalent) records for the
works (a lot of data can be taken from other libraries.) In addition,
the group can do the research on the copyright of the works, which of
course the cataloging information is important in the process. And
finally, this group can look over the scans to determine if any pages
are missing or badly scanned (a sort of QC function). It may be
possible to find trained librarian volunteers to help out in this
group. Since there exists *excellent* commercial software for
cataloging, again the Internet Archive may be willing to buy licenses
for that software for the group to use in return for help in cataloging
IA's scanning project in Toronto. Alev Akman is the expert in the area
of cataloging who should be further consulted for this project (she is
a head librarian at CSU Fresno, and has an MLIS degree.) She highly
recommends using commercial software for generating the cataloging
records in MARC or MARC-XML -- she also recommends the project develop
an authority database for the various fields, such as author names.

And the third area I don't need to discuss since that is the area of
focus at this time.

Interestingly, I would expect the scanning group to greatly outpace
the group producing structured digital texts, at least early on. This
doesn't matter, really. I think from a political standpoint
(particularly with regards to influencing the Canadian government with
regards to proper copyright policy), it is wise for the scanning group
to go hog wild and get as many scanned books online as possible -- get
a half dozen sheet feed scanners and keep them running 24-7! This will
catch the attention of a lot of people, including the Internet Archive,
and lead to good things, such as closer association with the Canadian
government and various archives, great PR, and other benefits
(possibly even major long-term funding.)

Jon Noring



From ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca  Thu Jan 27 17:19:29 2005
From: ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca (Wallace J.McLean)
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 20:19:29 -0500
Subject: Some humble suggestions... Re: [PGCanada] Re: PG-Canada / List of
	tasks to do
Message-ID: <3604f835d22e.35d22e3604f8@ncf.ca>

----- Original Message -----
From: Jon Noring <jon at noring.name>
Date: Thursday, January 27, 2005 7:44 pm
Subject: Some humble suggestions... Re: [PGCanada] Re: PG-Canada / List 
of tasks to do

> and a level of autonomy with the other groups. The three are:

0) Distributed pre-scanning. This would be semi-structured efforts to 
obtain ALL the public-domain content in a given area of interest (e.g., 
every PD book about Cape Breton; 18th-century imprints; imprints in 
Aboriginal languages; etc., etc.)

> 1) Scanning

Question: As a bulwark against copyright term extension, as a way of 
providing at least provisional access to works, and as a way of 
delivering raw scans to those who will generate, clean and up-mark OCR, 
should we make the raw scans available online? (My answer: yes.)

> 2) Cataloging and Copyright Clearance
> 3) Conversion to structured digital text
> 
> The first, scanning, can be done independently. It would seek out old
> texts to scan which, if public domain, can be placed online. Ask for
> donations (with a tax deduction to the donor) of old books which are
> otherwise falling apart, chop them

A lot of books we won't be able to get choppable copies of, and in a 
lot of cases, won't even need to: I think a key priority should be to 
beg, bum, borrow, or steal microform scanning capability, and start 
working our way through the CIHM back-catalogue, supplemented with 
proofraiding of the main existing Canadian image-libraries (ECO, BNQ, 
ourroots, etc.)

> (In other messages, I referred to the scanning project as Distributed
> Scanners.)

We can further distribute that task through my "cells" idea, which 
takes the "team" concept over at PGDP one step further.

Cells would be groups would would work more closely together to collect 
works in a geographical area (the Halifax cell), a given library (the 
Acadia University cell) or a given field of interest (the Canadian 
Incunabula cell; the LOTE cell; the Genealogy cell, etc.)

They would bootstrap themselves into existence, both on our site, and 
through outside contacts, and make conscious efforts to assimilate 
everything and anything that interests them and is clearable. Think LDS 
genealogists meet the Borg.

> The second, cataloging/copyright clearance, will take the scans which
> have been done, and put together MARC (or equivalent) records for the
> works (a lot of data can be taken from other libraries.) In addition,
> the group can do the research on the copyright of the works, which of
> course the cataloging information is important in the process. And
> finally, this group can look over the scans to determine if any pages
> are missing or badly scanned (a sort of QC function).

Again, provisional publication of the scans could help accelerate and 
distribute that process.






From jon at noring.name  Thu Jan 27 18:10:17 2005
From: jon at noring.name (Jon Noring)
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 19:10:17 -0700
Subject: Some humble suggestions... Re: [PGCanada] Re: PG-Canada / List of
	tasks to do
In-Reply-To: <3604f835d22e.35d22e3604f8@ncf.ca>
References: <3604f835d22e.35d22e3604f8@ncf.ca>
Message-ID: <18839523031.20050127191017@noring.name>

Wallace wrote:
> Jon Noring wrote:

> A lot of books we won't be able to get choppable copies of, and in a 
> lot of cases, won't even need to: I think a key priority should be to 
> beg, bum, borrow, or steal microform scanning capability, and start 
> working our way through the CIHM back-catalogue, supplemented with 
> proofraiding of the main existing Canadian image-libraries (ECO, BNQ, 
> ourroots, etc.)

Certainly, other sources are welcome, so long as the quality of the
page images meets minimal standards (to be established by the project)
and that they are fully unencumbered (when the works are public
domain) so the page images may freely be placed online.

DP, as an example, sometimes gets scans from institutions which, by
agreement with those institutions, prevents DP from placing the scans
publicly online. I've voiced my displeasure at this. Except in the
most extraordinary circumstances, where it is otherwise impossible to
ever find an unencumbered scan of a particular work, and this is rare,
PGCan should avoid such restrictions as much as possible, and actively
work to acquire only unencumbered scans of public domain works. I'd
even refuse offers for encumbered scans of PD works, with the hope
that once PGCan gets big enough, it can go back to the institution and
get the scans with no encumberances.

This brings up the new talking point as to the requirements for scans.
I believe the scans are just as important as the structured digital
text (SDT) to be produced from them, and should be made public,
referenced from the final SDT. This means the master scans need to
have a minimum resolution and color depth suitable for not only OCR
purposes, but also for scholarly-quality online reading (and other)
purposes.

My current view, subject to change, is that all master scans of B&W
pages should be done at 600 dpi (optical) and grey-scale. Current work
I'm doing on a project indicates that indeed 300 dpi is insufficient
for comfortable online viewing, especially for texts which have a lot
of fine print. If 300 dpi is decided anyway, then a *must* is that
they be grey-scale. But 600 dpi grey-scale is better (in a few rare
cases it may be wise to go even higher -- and of course color requires
full-color scans.) The downside, of course, is that the file sizes
for the scans are much larger. One could compress them using DjVu
(which is impressive), but I still believe the original scans should
be preserved in the original lossless form. Do not produce JPGs as
part of the scan acquiring process (as IA is experimenting with using
digital cameras for scanning.)


> We can further distribute that task through my "cells" idea, which 
> takes the "team" concept over at PGDP one step further.
>
> Cells would be groups would would work more closely together to collect 
> works in a geographical area (the Halifax cell), a given library (the 
> Acadia University cell) or a given field of interest (the Canadian 
> Incunabula cell; the LOTE cell; the Genealogy cell, etc.)

Good idea.

I'm definitely all for encouraging/catalyzing special-interest groups
to digitally scan works of interest to them. Such groups usually
bring in enthusiastic volunteers who will not only help to scan the
works, but will help in the proofing process to produce SDT.

Local historical societies, and genealogy groups (both by family
surname and by locality), are the notable groups which come to mind.
A startup project I'm working with, LibraryCity, has planned for a
while to mobilize these local special interest groups to digitize
their holdings and to get them online. LC plans to focus on the
usability and enhanceability of the final digital products. Blogs,
annotation, and collection interlinking are major features of the
LC focus.


> They would bootstrap themselves into existence, both on our site, and 
> through outside contacts, and make conscious efforts to assimilate 
> everything and anything that interests them and is clearable. Think LDS 
> genealogists meet the Borg.

Laugh. I live in Salt Lake City, and am an avid amateur genealogist.
I often do research in the Family History Library downtown. (I am NOT
LDS.)


>> The second, cataloging/copyright clearance, will take the scans which
>> have been done, and put together MARC (or equivalent) records for the
>> works (a lot of data can be taken from other libraries.) In addition,
>> the group can do the research on the copyright of the works, which of
>> course the cataloging information is important in the process. And
>> finally, this group can look over the scans to determine if any pages
>> are missing or badly scanned (a sort of QC function).

> Again, provisional publication of the scans could help accelerate and 
> distribute that process.

Certainly. Placing the scans online (which I assume is what you mean
by "publication") certainly *requires* that cataloging records be
first generated from them, as well as copyright clearance. It is my
belief that whoever accesses the PGCan repository of finished works
can push a button and get the catalog record in the format of interest
to them, such as MARC-XML (Lars Aronsson talked about using FRBR --
don't know much about that.)

Jon Noring



From ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca  Thu Jan 27 18:21:49 2005
From: ag737 at freenet.carleton.ca (Wallace J.McLean)
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 21:21:49 -0500
Subject: Some humble suggestions... Re: [PGCanada] Re: PG-Canada / List of
	tasks to do
Message-ID: <363110361260.361260363110@ncf.ca>

----- Original Message -----
From: Jon Noring <jon at noring.name>
Date: Thursday, January 27, 2005 9:10 pm
Subject: Re: Some humble suggestions... Re: [PGCanada] Re: PG-Canada / 
List of tasks to do

> Laugh. I live in Salt Lake City, and am an avid amateur genealogist.
> I often do research in the Family History Library downtown. (I am NOT
> LDS.)

I'm a recovering one. 

Genealogist, that is, not LDS.

I can probably recruit 100 volunteers if we can start getting into 
things like county histories and the amazing corpus of genealogical 
works that have come out of Quebec over the past century.

> > Again, provisional publication of the scans could help 
> accelerate and 
> > distribute that process.
> 
> Certainly. Placing the scans online (which I assume is what you mean
> by "publication") certainly *requires* that cataloging records be
> first generated from them, as well as copyright clearance.

Copyright clearance, yes; full cataloguing information can follow. 
Again, making the scans provisionally available can help with that 
process, too, giving cataloguers more information to go on.




From jon at noring.name  Thu Jan 27 18:59:10 2005
From: jon at noring.name (Jon Noring)
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 19:59:10 -0700
Subject: Some humble suggestions... Re: [PGCanada] Re: PG-Canada / List of
	tasks to do
In-Reply-To: <363110361260.361260363110@ncf.ca>
References: <363110361260.361260363110@ncf.ca>
Message-ID: <11242456453.20050127195910@noring.name>

Wallace wrote:
> Jon Noring wrote:

>> Laugh. I live in Salt Lake City, and am an avid amateur genealogist.
>> I often do research in the Family History Library downtown. (I am NOT
>> LDS.)

> I'm a recovering one. 
>
> Genealogist, that is, not LDS.

<laugh/>


> I can probably recruit 100 volunteers if we can start getting into 
> things like county histories and the amazing corpus of genealogical 
> works that have come out of Quebec over the past century.

All PGCan has to do is a few demonstration projects, and it'll be
flooded with requests to help setup new local projects.

I envision going in, helping a group setup a professional-grade
scanning station (hopefully there will be funds donated to pay for the
scanners -- I see a sheet feed, a smaller flatbed optimized for books
which are still bound, a large format flatbed for large documents, and
a PC with a DVD burner and large capacity disk.) Then train them in
the use of the scanners. Turn them loose and let them go crazy. PGCan
then collects and archives the scans (burned to DVDs -- if the scans
are unencumbered Brewster will gladly take the stuff, too.) How to
properly collect metadata needs to be carefully thought through for
the workflow -- I have no suggestions on this.

Jon



From sly at victoria.tc.ca  Thu Jan 27 23:05:14 2005
From: sly at victoria.tc.ca (Andrew Sly)
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 23:05:14 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [PGCanada] Licensing for PG-Canada content
In-Reply-To: <41F90DE7.7090701@moores.ca>
References: <3319cb3350c8.3350c83319cb@ncf.ca>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0501261402060.9323@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
	<41F90DE7.7090701@moores.ca>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501272257320.9568@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>



On Thu, 27 Jan 2005, Darryl Moore wrote:

> >
> I'll open this discussion by suggesting a cc|ca licence option (1)
> attribution
>
> http://creativecommons.ca/index.php?p=explained
>
> I.E. anyone can do anything they want so long as they attribute PGC as
> the source.
>


I know that some people have expressed their concern over the PG
license. However, I don't believe it should be discarded out of
hand.

A key point is that it does _not_ claim any copyright on the
text itself and only restricts what can be done with the text
as long as it is done along with the Project Gutenberg trademark.
This helps to end the self-perpetuating new claims of copyright
on old material that is so prevalent.

I have a problem with releasing PG Canada e-books under an
Attribution license that says we can:
   let others copy, distribute, display, and perform
   [our] copyrighted work - and derivative works based upon it -
   but only if they give [us] credit.

If we own the copyright to an item, we are entitled
to say that; but as long it truly is public domain material,
we don't have a right to impose such restrictions on it.
We could _request_ to be acknowledged as a source, but I don't
see that we could require it.

Andrew


From darryl at moores.ca  Fri Jan 28 04:29:42 2005
From: darryl at moores.ca (Darryl Moore)
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 07:29:42 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] Licensing for PG-Canada content
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501272257320.9568@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
References: <3319cb3350c8.3350c83319cb@ncf.ca>	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0501261402060.9323@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>	<41F90DE7.7090701@moores.ca>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0501272257320.9568@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
Message-ID: <41FA3036.80804@moores.ca>

I think that maybe we could/should have an option on the web site to 
provide the books is a raw ASCII form. In that form I think we could 
even have a non-licence which clearly states that the text is in the 
public domain and is provided with absolutely no restrictions.

My thoughts around licencing of other forms are two fold:

1) I am assuming there is a reasonable amount of work which goes into 
marking up the texts as James is planning. (This unfortunately may be 
where my ignorance shows as I have not yet done any of this sort of 
stuff.) Copyright law unfortunately does not provide any guidelines for 
how much work constitutes a new derived work. By placing a licence here, 
even if it is somehow determined that what we are providing are new 
derived works, we will have ensured that they are treated like public 
domain.

2) We need to ensure that a future malcontented DP volunteer does not 
make everybodies' lives difficult by claiming his own more restrictive 
rights on the works for the same reasons stated in (1). By ensuring that 
the works submitters are consenting to the same licence they will not be 
able to force us to remove works from the archives at a later date.

Basically any licence would be to cover our asses. We could even state 
that in other words, in the licence itself. Put in a preamble which says 
that we don't think you should need this but...

The only reason for the attribution is to acknowledge the work that DP 
volunteers have done and to spread the word about the public domain and 
Project Gutenberg. If we disavow the licence then perhaps we could just 
make this a polite request.


Andrew Sly wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 27 Jan 2005, Darryl Moore wrote:
> 
> 
>>I'll open this discussion by suggesting a cc|ca licence option (1)
>>attribution
>>
>>http://creativecommons.ca/index.php?p=explained
>>
>>I.E. anyone can do anything they want so long as they attribute PGC as
>>the source.
>>
> 
> 
> 
> I know that some people have expressed their concern over the PG
> license. However, I don't believe it should be discarded out of
> hand.
> 
> A key point is that it does _not_ claim any copyright on the
> text itself and only restricts what can be done with the text
> as long as it is done along with the Project Gutenberg trademark.
> This helps to end the self-perpetuating new claims of copyright
> on old material that is so prevalent.
> 
> I have a problem with releasing PG Canada e-books under an
> Attribution license that says we can:
>    let others copy, distribute, display, and perform
>    [our] copyrighted work - and derivative works based upon it -
>    but only if they give [us] credit.
> 
> If we own the copyright to an item, we are entitled
> to say that; but as long it truly is public domain material,
> we don't have a right to impose such restrictions on it.
> We could _request_ to be acknowledged as a source, but I don't
> see that we could require it.
> 


From jon at noring.name  Fri Jan 28 08:03:10 2005
From: jon at noring.name (Jon Noring)
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 09:03:10 -0700
Subject: [PGCanada] Licensing for PG-Canada content
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501272257320.9568@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
References: <3319cb3350c8.3350c83319cb@ncf.ca>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0501261402060.9323@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
	<41F90DE7.7090701@moores.ca>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0501272257320.9568@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
Message-ID: <413083328.20050128090310@noring.name>

Andrew Sly wrote:
> Darryl Moore wrote:

>> I'll open this discussion by suggesting a cc|ca licence option (1)
>> attribution
>>
>> http://creativecommons.ca/index.php?p=explained
>>
>> I.E. anyone can do anything they want so long as they attribute PGC as
>> the source.

> I know that some people have expressed their concern over the PG
> license. However, I don't believe it should be discarded out of
> hand.
>
> A key point is that it does _not_ claim any copyright on the
> text itself and only restricts what can be done with the text
> as long as it is done along with the Project Gutenberg trademark.
> This helps to end the self-perpetuating new claims of copyright
> on old material that is so prevalent.

Can't the CC|CA license option be tweaked to cover the special needs
of PGCan and which conforms with Canadian copyright law?


> I have a problem with releasing PG Canada e-books under an
> Attribution license that says we can:
>    let others copy, distribute, display, and perform
>    [our] copyrighted work - and derivative works based upon it -
>    but only if they give [us] credit.
>
> If we own the copyright to an item, we are entitled
> to say that; but as long it truly is public domain material,
> we don't have a right to impose such restrictions on it.
> We could _request_ to be acknowledged as a source, but I don't
> see that we could require it.

Again, I'd get with the CC|CA folk to ask for some new category/
approach/wording to fit PGCan's special needs. Even though most of the
works will derive from PD sources (but not all of the works -- for the
rest, such as modern donated works, CC|CA is a must), there are
portions of what PGCan issues which will automatically be copyrighted
by the "born copyrighted" principle.

Standing back and looking at the Bigger Picture, I believe it a Very
Good Idea (tm) for any PG country group to not go it alone when it
doesn't have to (as PGUSA seems to do for just about everything under
the sun.) And for PGCan to tie itself to the key movements such as
Creative Commons which wish for positive copyright reform not only is
a very good idea, it is a smart political move to gain friends and
influence (for example, consider asking someone from the CC|CA group
to serve on the PGCan Board of Trustees.) PGUSA could have been a lot
more powerful in influencing public policy (which would then have
gained it greater prominence, leading to more stable core funding and
greater results) had it not been so strangely xenophobic the last
decade with its "Everyone is out to screw us and the Public Domain, so
we must go it alone in everything we do" philosophy. It is sad.

So PGCan, being a new entity with no baggage, is well-positioned to
not repeat the same mistakes of the past and to take the leading
world-wide role in copyright reform issues and the protection of the
Public Domain. Grab the ring! Want to influence Canadian copyright
policy?, then work with CC on wording that works for PGCan and which
is also in conformance with Canadian copyright law. Don't go it alone
here unless it proves necessary to do so.

Just my $0.02 worth.

Jon Noring



From nwolcott at dsdial.net  Fri Jan 28 18:23:58 2005
From: nwolcott at dsdial.net (N Wolcott)
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 21:23:58 -0500
Subject: [PGCanada] Re: PG-Canada / List of tasks to do
References: <3538103548ad.3548ad353810@ncf.ca>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0501271528020.24797@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
Message-ID: <00ff01c505ab$60296800$a39495ce@gw98>

Right now it might be important to harvest as much from PG of OZ as possible
before it all disappears. Some like Gone with the Wind are already gone, or
only partially there via internet archive as the list owner apparently
requested their deletion.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Sly" <sly at victoria.tc.ca>
To: <PGCanada at lists.pglaf.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2005 6:49 PM
Subject: [PGCanada] Re: PG-Canada / List of tasks to do


>
> I'd suggest that getting content and finding Public domain books
> is not something we need to worry about. Having enough interested
> volunteers to help produce them will probably be more of a challenge.
>
> I'll compare here with Project Gutenberg. Right now a bottle-neck
> is in having people to post-process the texts coming out of DP.
> There are plenty of people ready who could produce page scans
> of eligible books faster than they could be processed.
>
> As we will be dealing probably largely with post-1922 books
> I don't think it will be too hard to find books that are eligible
> for PG Canada.
>
> I admire the philosophy of letting volunteers do what they
> are interested in, or even just happen to find copies of.
> However, it couldn't hurt to have a list of requested books.
>
> Also, if it helps, I've got a large list of Canadian authors
> (or at least from Canadian referance sources) courtesy of
> Philip at the New General Catalog of Old Books & Authors
> http://www.kingkong.demon.co.uk/ngcoba/ngcoba.htm
>
> In the past, I have contributed a few dozen author names,
> missing dates, etc. for his lists, and I'd suggest he would
> be a worthwhile ally to have, particularly in the matter of
> sharing author birth and death dates.
>
> Andrew
>
> On Thu, 27 Jan 2005, Wallace J.McLean wrote:
>
> >
> > > I'd also suggest a list of notable books and their location might be
> > a
> > > good idea. I know a few people who have a number of books that are
> > not
> > > likely in the system yet, but really should be. If we could identify
> > > what cooperative people, have what books, then we might be able to
> > get a
> > > higher quality content sooner by prioritizing this list.
> >
> >
> > It's both easy and hard to get a list of eligible dead guys. Easy; just
> > use a pre-1955 year as an author name keyword in a library catalogue.
> > (You'll also get lots of authors born in 1954, unless you restrict your
> > search to imprints <1955 as well.) Hard; you get lots and lots of hits.
> >
> > What I've been promoting among some of the content-providing cabal is
> > this:
> >
> > Let's concentrate on post-1922 imprints. DP-USA/PG-USA can do anything
> > published before this date; let them (and the us that are a part of
> > them) deal with those works there. Let's specialize in materials that
> > won't be available on the US site for many years to come.
> >
> > And let's concentrate on works by authors who died more than 50 but
> > less than 71 years ago. This is, realistically, the body of work most
> > at risk of being lost to copyright extension in Canada. If we can get a
> > gazillion such works re-used as public domain works, it makes it
> > politically very difficult for the Guvmint to extend the life+term, at
> > least not retroactively.
> >
> > So: on the content side, our major content providers should focus (not
> > exclusively, but consciously focus) on post-1923 works by authors who
> > died from 1934 to 1954. Next year we move the death dates up a year,
> > and so on, and so on.
> >
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Project Gutenberg of Canada
> Website: http://www.projectgutenberg.ca/
> List: pgcanada at lists.pglaf.org
> Archives: http://lists.pglaf.org/private.cgi/pgcanada/
>



From sly at victoria.tc.ca  Fri Jan 28 23:05:27 2005
From: sly at victoria.tc.ca (Andrew Sly)
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 23:05:27 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [PGCanada] Re: PG-Canada / List of tasks to do
In-Reply-To: <00ff01c505ab$60296800$a39495ce@gw98>
References: <3538103548ad.3548ad353810@ncf.ca>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0501271528020.24797@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
	<00ff01c505ab$60296800$a39495ce@gw98>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501282255530.26417@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>

Hi Norm.

Yes, adding books from PG of OZ is a good idea. (Although as I've said
before, there is no lack of ideas about what could be added. It will
be, as usual, a matter of what volunteers actually do that will be
the deciding factor.)

And just to try and correct any misinformation here...

I don't have the impression that PG of OZ is likely to disappear any time
soon. Gone with the Wind is there in the collection (it was not absent
for too long), and I am not aware of any other titles in the PG of OZ
collection which anyone has even suggested removing.

I must admit I know very little about the Australian copyright law
"reform" that came into place on January 1st, but I do have the impression
that it is not retroactive, so there are no legal problems with anything
which had already been added.

Andrew

On Fri, 28 Jan 2005, N Wolcott wrote:

> Right now it might be important to harvest as much from PG of OZ as possible
> before it all disappears. Some like Gone with the Wind are already gone, or
> only partially there via internet archive as the list owner apparently
> requested their deletion.


From sly at victoria.tc.ca  Sat Jan 29 00:12:35 2005
From: sly at victoria.tc.ca (Andrew Sly)
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 00:12:35 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [PGCanada] Licensing for PG-Canada content
In-Reply-To: <41FA3036.80804@moores.ca>
References: <3319cb3350c8.3350c83319cb@ncf.ca>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0501261402060.9323@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
	<41F90DE7.7090701@moores.ca>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0501272257320.9568@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
	<41FA3036.80804@moores.ca>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501282343170.2919@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>


Two thoughts here.

1) I believe that providing raw text files as an output format is
a given. I personally would be very disappointed if this were not so.
Some people will say "get rid of those old, obselete ascii texts",
but they have proven to be the most portable, long-lasting texts
for many purposes.

A brief story here:

As a Project Gutenberg volunteer who deals with catalog correction
emails, I had a message to reply to not long ago, from someone
who wanted to find all of the King James bible in one text file.
Somehow, he had ended up viewing the catalog record for a PG
release which contained the text of the King James bible split
up into multiple html files instead. So we received from him a
long message about how he comes to PG expecting to find plain
text files, and what business have we got doing anything else....

2) What you mention below seems to me to have to do with the
eternally recurring argument of "sweat-of-the-brow" copyright
vs. "intellectual contribution" copyright.

I do not know how this issue stands under Canadaian law,
however, here is a quote which may be applicable from
"Canadian Copyright Law, 3rd Ed."

  Editions _per se_ are not protected by copyright. That is, the
  way a work is typographically arranged (format, type fonts and
  layout) is not currently protected by the law.


Andrew


On Fri, 28 Jan 2005, Darryl Moore wrote:

> I think that maybe we could/should have an option on the web site to
> provide the books is a raw ASCII form. In that form I think we could
> even have a non-licence which clearly states that the text is in the
> public domain and is provided with absolutely no restrictions.
>
> My thoughts around licencing of other forms are two fold:
>
> 1) I am assuming there is a reasonable amount of work which goes into
> marking up the texts as James is planning. (This unfortunately may be
> where my ignorance shows as I have not yet done any of this sort of
> stuff.) Copyright law unfortunately does not provide any guidelines for
> how much work constitutes a new derived work. By placing a licence here,
> even if it is somehow determined that what we are providing are new
> derived works, we will have ensured that they are treated like public
> domain.
>
> 2) We need to ensure that a future malcontented DP volunteer does not
> make everybodies' lives difficult by claiming his own more restrictive
> rights on the works for the same reasons stated in (1). By ensuring that
> the works submitters are consenting to the same licence they will not be
> able to force us to remove works from the archives at a later date.
>
> Basically any licence would be to cover our asses. We could even state
> that in other words, in the licence itself. Put in a preamble which says
> that we don't think you should need this but...
>
> The only reason for the attribution is to acknowledge the work that DP
> volunteers have done and to spread the word about the public domain and
> Project Gutenberg. If we disavow the licence then perhaps we could just
> make this a polite request.
>
>


From hart at pglaf.org  Sat Jan 29 10:25:28 2005
From: hart at pglaf.org (Michael Hart)
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 10:25:28 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [PGCanada] Licensing for PG-Canada content
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501282343170.2919@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
References: <3319cb3350c8.3350c83319cb@ncf.ca>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0501261402060.9323@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
	<41F90DE7.7090701@moores.ca>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0501272257320.9568@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
	<41FA3036.80804@moores.ca>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0501282343170.2919@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.60.0501291015590.28997@pglaf.org>


As per the King James Bible example below. . . .

I just found the following King James Versions:

The Bible, King James Version                                            10900
Apr 2005 The Bible, King James, Revelation     Book 66[#86][bib66xxx.xxx] 8066
...
Apr 2005 The Bible, King James, Genesis        Book  1[#21][bib01xxx.xxx] 8001
The Bible, King James version, Complete, Books 1-66                       7999
Apr 1992 New eBook of Bible [KJV] [From many editions]     [biblexxx.xxx]   30
Aug 1989 The Bible, Both Testaments, King James Version    [kjvxxxxx.xxx]   10

Simply by searching for "King James" and "KJV"

Is there something wrong with our catalog or search engine that would not
allow the casual reader to find and use these, including the whole Bible
in one file, as requested below?

Should we do something to make finding these simpler or more obvious?

BTW, we also have several other English editions of the Bible,
in one large file or broken down by book, and also several in
other languages, all found with my search of "Bible."

Thanks!

Michael



On Sat, 29 Jan 2005, Andrew Sly wrote:

>
> Two thoughts here.
>
> 1) I believe that providing raw text files as an output format is
> a given. I personally would be very disappointed if this were not so.
> Some people will say "get rid of those old, obselete ascii texts",
> but they have proven to be the most portable, long-lasting texts
> for many purposes.
>
> A brief story here:
>
> As a Project Gutenberg volunteer who deals with catalog correction
> emails, I had a message to reply to not long ago, from someone
> who wanted to find all of the King James bible in one text file.
> Somehow, he had ended up viewing the catalog record for a PG
> release which contained the text of the King James bible split
> up into multiple html files instead. So we received from him a
> long message about how he comes to PG expecting to find plain
> text files, and what business have we got doing anything else....
>
> 2) What you mention below seems to me to have to do with the
> eternally recurring argument of "sweat-of-the-brow" copyright
> vs. "intellectual contribution" copyright.
>
> I do not know how this issue stands under Canadaian law,
> however, here is a quote which may be applicable from
> "Canadian Copyright Law, 3rd Ed."
>
>  Editions _per se_ are not protected by copyright. That is, the
>  way a work is typographically arranged (format, type fonts and
>  layout) is not currently protected by the law.
>
>
> Andrew
>
>
> On Fri, 28 Jan 2005, Darryl Moore wrote:
>
>> I think that maybe we could/should have an option on the web site to
>> provide the books is a raw ASCII form. In that form I think we could
>> even have a non-licence which clearly states that the text is in the
>> public domain and is provided with absolutely no restrictions.
>>
>> My thoughts around licencing of other forms are two fold:
>>
>> 1) I am assuming there is a reasonable amount of work which goes into
>> marking up the texts as James is planning. (This unfortunately may be
>> where my ignorance shows as I have not yet done any of this sort of
>> stuff.) Copyright law unfortunately does not provide any guidelines for
>> how much work constitutes a new derived work. By placing a licence here,
>> even if it is somehow determined that what we are providing are new
>> derived works, we will have ensured that they are treated like public
>> domain.
>>
>> 2) We need to ensure that a future malcontented DP volunteer does not
>> make everybodies' lives difficult by claiming his own more restrictive
>> rights on the works for the same reasons stated in (1). By ensuring that
>> the works submitters are consenting to the same licence they will not be
>> able to force us to remove works from the archives at a later date.
>>
>> Basically any licence would be to cover our asses. We could even state
>> that in other words, in the licence itself. Put in a preamble which says
>> that we don't think you should need this but...
>>
>> The only reason for the attribution is to acknowledge the work that DP
>> volunteers have done and to spread the word about the public domain and
>> Project Gutenberg. If we disavow the licence then perhaps we could just
>> make this a polite request.
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Project Gutenberg of Canada
> Website: http://www.projectgutenberg.ca/
> List: pgcanada at lists.pglaf.org
> Archives: http://lists.pglaf.org/private.cgi/pgcanada/
>