January 2005 - gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

Orphaned Copyrights
by Karl Hagen 27 Jan '05

27 Jan '05

(Originally sent this from the wrong e-mail address, so apologies if it appears twice.) On BoingBoing, I ran across a link to this notice of inquiry, whose importance to PG seems glaringly obvious: SUMMARY: The Copyright Office seeks to examine the issues raised by ``orphan works,'' i.e., copyrighted works whose owners are difficult or even impossible to locate. Concerns have been raised that the uncertainty surrounding ownership of such works might needlessly discourage subsequent creators and users from incorporating such works in new creative efforts or making such works available to the public. This notice requests written comments from all interested parties. Specifically, the Office is seeking comments on whether there are compelling concerns raised by orphan works that merit a legislative, regulatory or other solution, and what type of solution could effectively address these concerns without conflicting with the legitimate interests of authors and right holders. Full document at http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20051800/edocket.access.gpo.go…

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Re: [gutvol-d] Addition to PG History PT1
by Joshua Hutchinson 26 Jan '05

26 Jan '05

----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Hart" <hart(a)pglaf.org> > > Of course, you are welcome to apply any techniques to your own history > of Project Gutenberg, and run them up our flagpole for testing. > The biggest problem I have with your posts lately, Michael, is that you "run something up the flagpole" and then when a bunch of people start trying to shoot it down, you say, "Well, you never complained before, so I'm going to ignore you now." > If there were truly an aversion to using Moore's Law for these purposes, > this aversion would likely have been brought up quite often from the 1991 > to the present. So either the PG group at large can have an opinion on your "flagpole testing" or we do everything as status-quo. Can't have it both ways. Josh

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Copyright Office requests comments on orphaned works
by Karl Hagen 26 Jan '05

26 Jan '05

On BoingBoing, I ran across a link to this notice of inquiry, whose importance to PG seems glaringly obvious: SUMMARY: The Copyright Office seeks to examine the issues raised by ``orphan works,'' i.e., copyrighted works whose owners are difficult or even impossible to locate. Concerns have been raised that the uncertainty surrounding ownership of such works might needlessly discourage subsequent creators and users from incorporating such works in new creative efforts or making such works available to the public. This notice requests written comments from all interested parties. Specifically, the Office is seeking comments on whether there are compelling concerns raised by orphan works that merit a legislative, regulatory or other solution, and what type of solution could effectively address these concerns without conflicting with the legitimate interests of authors and right holders. Full document at http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20051800/edocket.access.gpo.go…

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anyone wanna' translate?
by Aaron Cannon 26 Jan '05

26 Jan '05

Received this message at the cd(a)pglaf.org address. Anyone care to translate? >To: Project Gutenberg <cd(a)pglaf.org> >Subject: Re: Your Project Gutenberg CD/DVD request > >askim! uf ben de daha gecen hafta gutenberg'de geziniyodum. bu maili >alinca anlayamadim o yuzden :) acaba yanlis bi yere mi bastim da boyle >oldu diye merak icinde hatirlamaya calisirken 'kaya'dan seda'ya' >notunu gordum! :) > -- E-mail: cannona(a)fireantproductions.com Skype: cannona MSN Messenger: cannona(a)hotmail.com (Do not send E-mail to the hotmail address.)

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Re: [gutvol-d] Moving and Removing eBooks
by Joshua Hutchinson 25 Jan '05

25 Jan '05

I do remember a discussion last month about a file format that is completely unaccesible (the reader no longer exists). There is one or two ebooks in the PG collection in this format. There was call to deprecate those versions into an OLD subfolder (or something like that) so that people coming to the site weren't confused. No one advocated deletion, only better cataloging. That is probably where Michael's dozen is coming from, because many people thought this was a sensible step to take (and basically only Michael thought it wasn't). Josh ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Dyck" <jmdyck(a)ibiblio.org> To: "Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion" <gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org> Subject: Re: [gutvol-d] Moving and Removing eBooks Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 12:27:47 -0800 > > Michael Hart wrote: > > > > However, there are at least a dozen or two very outspoken volunteers at > > Project Gutenberg among a dozen or two thousand of such volunteers, who > > would prefer to delete many of the original Project Gutenberg eBooks in > > favor of replacing them with something else, as opposed to just working > > on them to bring them up to the standards of the modern era of eBooks. > > This sounds like an exaggeration to me. It's true that (on January 4th) > D. Starner asked[1] if we could "get rid of" PG's World Library Editions > of Shakespeare, and appeared to be in favour of doing so. See: > http://lists.pglaf.org/private.cgi/gutvol-d/2005-January/001133.html > However, > > (a) I don't see that anyone agreed with the deletion. So that's one > outspoken volunteer, not "at least a dozen or two". > > (b) I don't see anyone recommending the deletion of any other books. > > If there are posts I've missed that would support the assertion above, > feel free to give links to the archive. > > Mind you, that's assuming that the outspokenness has happened on > gutvol-d. Did it happen somewhere else? > > By the way, I'm curious as to why D. Starner would like to get rid of > those editions. Are they particularly bad/questionable for some reason? > > > > Would someone be willing to do all the work to donate a Britannica 11th > > to Project Gutenberg this year if they thought it would be removed from > > Project Gutenberg a decade after it was first included? > > Yes, I would. And if you ask "Why would you go to all that effort, only > to have the results deleted in 10 years?", I would point out that it > would only be PG's copy that's deleted; the results of my work would > live on, elsewhere on the web. > > -Michael > > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d

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etext 1842 Michael Sstrogoff
by N Wolcott 25 Jan '05

25 Jan '05

The catalogue currently indicates an 1842 -10 html and 1842-11 txt. Previously I had a 1842-10 txt which no longet appears. These appear to be all the same text, although 1842-10.txt and t842-11.txt differ in length by 2K bytes (change in header?). The source for all was apparently Judy Boss, and as there will be no errors in her text, unless she herself submitted it twice, all the texts should be identical. Since the html was converted from Boss's text there is the possibility of an error in the conversion. The html capitalizes the 1st letter of each chapter, not in the original etext. Otherwise a robot conversion. Too bad all the versions do not appear on the catalogue list. N Wolcott nwolcott2(a)post.harvard.edu

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Magic books?
by Juhana Sadeharju 25 Jan '05

25 Jan '05

Hello. A few years ago I purchased old magic books (in public domain) from a web company. I could not find the company anymore. At the time I had money to purchase only about 10 books and wanted to purchase more later. Where I could find magic books either as commercial digitized image files or as free image files or OCR'ed text. That is, if I need to purchase, I want the original look&feel to the books (like I do have now in those 10 books). Otherwise anything goes. The books are about the real magic, performed by Houdini, James Randi, David Copperfield, Pen&Teller, Masked Magician, and many more. I have no idea where I could find original magic books so that I could digitize them myself. (Previously I have scanned a few math books.) Regards, Juhana

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Addition to PG History PT1
by Michael Hart 25 Jan '05

25 Jan '05

Well, it would appear those in question did not read the message above, at least they did not reply to any of the points made, so I am duty bound to explain in a bit more detail, as to how there are no other choices other than Project Gutenberg's first effort at a regular production schedule in 1991 as a starting point. Here are various starting years and results for Moore's Law used to project the growth of Project Gutenberg. START TOTAL START TOTAL START TOTAL START TOTAL YEAR NUMBER YEAR NUMBER YEAR NUMBER YEAR NUMBER ACTUAL 1971 BASE 1971 1979 BASE 1979 1990 BASE 1990 1993 BASE 1993 NUMBER/YR 1971 1 1 1971 1974 4 4 1974 1977 16 7 1977 1980 64 1979 9 9 1980 1983 256 1982 36 9 1983 1986 1024 1985 144 10 1986 1989 4096 1988 576 1990 10 10 1989 1992 16384 1991 2304 1993 40 1993 100 42 1992 1995 65536 1994 9216 1996 160 1996 400 365 1995 1998 262144 1997 36864 1999 640 1999 1600 1550 1998 2001 1480576 2000 147456 2002 2560 2002 25600 4260 2001 2004 4194304 2003 589824 2005 10240 2005 102400 14944 2004 2007 16777216 2006 2359296 2008 40960 2008 409600 ????? 2007 As you can plainly see, starting Moore's Law at any other date than ~1991 is inappropriate not only because the numbers make it obvious, but also because 1991 was the first year of regular production growth for Project Gutenberg.

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Re: [gutvol-d] PT1 History of PG
by Joshua Hutchinson 24 Jan '05

24 Jan '05

Believe what? That Moore's Law was never meant to be applied to PG? Yes, I believe that. That Moore's Law is being applied arbitrarily to PG production? Yes, I believe that. That Moore's Law is not being adhered to by our production EXCEPT for the very specific and arbitrary start date chosen by you? Yes, I believe that. Do I believe it is a big deal? No. It is obviously a marketing gimmick with no real value. MOST marketing gimmicks "cook the numbers" in some way, so this just adheres to the grand traditions of marketing/public relations. Josh ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Hart" <hart(a)pglaf.org> To: "Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion" <gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org> Subject: Re: [gutvol-d] PT1 History of PG Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 11:39:15 -0800 (PST) > > > Just a simple question. . .how many people believe any of this? > > Should I really go through the motions of refuting it again, > and again, and again? > > As I said privately, offline, I don't think even the speaker > believes what he is saying. . . . > > Michael > > > On Thu, 20 Jan 2005, Marcello Perathoner wrote: > > > Michael Hart wrote: > > > >> Obviously no one ever seriously considered that Project Gutenberg > >> might actually release a million eBooks in 2001, but there were a > >> few examples recently of suggestions that we should have used the > >> 1971 date, and thus the resultant figures listed above when doing > >> our Moore's Law predictions. > > > > [epighraph] > > > > "Contrary to popular claims, it appears that the common versions of > > Moore's Law have not been valid during the last decades. As > > semiconductors are becoming important in economy and society, Moore's > > Law is now becoming an increasingly misleading predictor of future > > developments." > > > > ... > > > > "Indeed, sociologically Moore's Law is a fascinating case of how myths are > > manufactured in the modern society and how such myths rapidly propagate into > > scientific articles, speeches of leading industrialists, and government > > policy reports around the world." > > > > http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_11/tuomi/index.html > > > > [/epigraph] > > > > Read that page for the sad truth about Moore's "Law". > > > > > > My suggestion was to stop using arbitrary data to keep up the illusion > > of Moore's Law (which, if you had read that page, would have known never > > worked even for computers) but to use real data to show that Moore's > > "Law" does not fit to PG production. > > > > The suggestion was to use the real date the project started (1971) > > instead of your fictitious and arbitrary one (1990). > > > > Of course, using real dates, the idea that PG production followed > > Moore's Law dies a horrible death. > > > > > > Even looking at the relatively short period of Nov 2003 to Nov 2004 we > > can prove in a very simple manner that Moore's Law doesn't hold. > > > > 1. In Nov 2003 we had 10000 books. > > > > 2. Applying Moore's Law, in Nov 2004 we should have had > > 10000 * 2 ^ (12/18) = 15874 books. > > > > 3. Moore's Law does not hold for PG archive size. > > > > QED > > > > > > The sad fact is: some people with a marketing person's mind prefer to > > stick to a phony and proven wrong "Law" because it is such a slick > > formulation. > > > > Why do we need flashy formulas at all? If we say: "we got 15000 books > > today" isn't that enough? Don't you have faith in the facts? > > > > > > -- Marcello Perathoner > > webmaster(a)gutenberg.org > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > gutvol-d mailing list > > gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org > > http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d > > > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d

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Re: !@! Re: [gutvol-d] Moving and Removing eBooks
by D. Starner 23 Jan '05

23 Jan '05

Michael Hart writes: > This is why we do not "Move or Remove" eBooks from > the more visble locations to the less visible. We do everytime we make a new edition of a book; we move the old edition from the default link to something you'd have to dig around in the directory tree does. Darn good thing, too. -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm

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