- gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

Fw: [gweekly] 15,000th Project Gutenberg eBook Released
by Miranda van de Heijning 11 Jan '05

11 Jan '05

Perhaps I don't understand Moore's Law properly, but aren't we actually well behind on its schedule? If we published our 10,000th book at the end of 2003, doubling in 1.5 years means 20,000 books in mid-2005. At the current rate we are not likely to reach that figure--anywhere between 16k and 17k seems more realistic. It's not something to be ashamed of, as we are still extending the archive at a very respectable rate, so can we not just be honest about it and admit that we while we predicted 20,000 based on Moore's Law, we are no longer growing that quickly. I've always understood Moore's Law to be just a prediction, not a target, so we haven't failed anything. :-) Other than that, congratulations on reaching 15,000! What was posted as eBook 15000? To: "Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter" <gweekly(a)lists.pglaf.org> Sent: Saturday, January 08, 2005 8:00 PM Subject: [gweekly] 15,000th Project Gutenberg eBook Released > > Congratulations to the Project Gutenberg Volunteers!!! > > > In the last hour Project Gutenberg released their 15,000th eBook. > > More details will be available in Wednesday's email Newsletters. > > This far exceeds Moore's Law projections from 10 eBooks in 1990, > which would predict 15,000 around August, 2006, and which every > pundit has continually said was an impossible growth rate: > > Projected Growth Rate > > Total Date Doubled Years > > 10 Dec, 1990 0 0 > 20 Jun, 1992 1 1.5 > 40 Dec, 1993 2 3 > 80 Jun, 1995 3 4.5 > 160 Dec, 1996 4 6 > 320 Jun, 1998 5 7.5 > 640 Dec, 1999 6 9 > 1280 Jun, 2001 7 10.5 > 2560 Dec, 2002 8 12 > 5120 Jun, 2004 9 13.5 > 10240 Dec, 2005 10 15 > 15000 Aug, 2006 10.5 15+ <<< Predicted Date for ~15,000 > 20480 Jun, 2007 11 16.5 > > > Our many thanks to all the thousands of Gutenberg volunteers!!! > > > Michael S. Hart > > _______________________________________________ > gweekly mailing list > gweekly(a)lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gweekly > >

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Re: PG editorial policy? [Re: [gutvol-d] Fw: [gweekly] 15,000th Project Gutenberg eBook Released]
by D. Starner 11 Jan '05

11 Jan '05

> You are touching here the problem of the (lack of) editorial policy of > PG / PGDP. Why is this a problem? And if you see it as a problem, why don't you fix it? Jon Ingram thought that PG was missing good, complete editions of Chaucer and Pope and Dryden and Wordsworth, but instead of trying to tell me what to scan, he started scanning complete editions of those authors. It's a much more productive solution. > All this makes for a not very coherent, consistent editorial policy. I > guess literature people can easily criticize the PG French catalog (some > very obscure books, and some blatant misses). It's called a library. I'm sitting in a library that reached two million volumes a few years ago, and they have some very obscure books, and at the same time has some blatant misses. (For example, they have only 10 volumes of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and half of those are in special collections.) > They're not hackers, they > don't have this culture of "let's get involved, roll up our sleeves and > change the world", but still they could be useful to PG. How? Like many volunteer groups, we already have many people who want to run things already. Like many successful volunteer groups, PG goes out of its way to give a lot of freedom to the people actually doing the work. If they're not willing to roll up their sleeves and do something, how can they be useful to PG? -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm

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Re: [gutvol-d] no flame. suggestion, comments, apology
by D. Starner 10 Jan '05

10 Jan '05

Instead of just general fiction, let me ramble on for a few minutes about a few niches I'm familiar with. A 28 year copyright term would be releasing the very first volumes in roleplaying games into the public domain. A 14 year copyright term might have some economic effect on the industry, but primarily on companies that bought the rights to reprint old material. (Looking at Dover, one could easily argue that they could stay in buisness.) Pretty much everyone who wants the mainstream material that's 15 years old either has a copy or can find a used copy cheap. The non-mainstream material is, as a general rule, gone. Not because it's bad, but the market is dominated by a few licenses and a few more-or-less generic games. The games where you roleplay crawfish in a post-apocalyptic future weren't bad, they were just odd. They're part of the long tail, as mentioned in the Wired article someone pointed out, hurt further by the fact the whole industry is part of the long-tail; big industry players consider 10,000 books to be a large print run. Twenty-eight years in the computer industry would hurt about 10 books. Andrew Tannenbaum and Donald Knuth would have to worry about people updating older editions and competing with them. Fortunately for them, the universities that employ them don't plan to stop paying them anytime soon. In exchange for slighly hurting those two dignitaries economically, we have access without question to a wealth of information about early computers and the early history of the industry, little of which is in print and equally little of which is available to the average programmer. But don't worry: all the precious books of BASIC programs for the Commodore 64 will still be under copyright for a long time to come. > Don't deprive millions of readers for the sake of a relatively > small number who want to read poor quality older books. The > really good stuff, the stuff people are actually interested in reading, > tends to stay in print. There's large volumes of niche material that is high quality and interesting, but is out of print because of the relatively small market. Even some highly lauded material, like the Lensman series, spent long periods of time out of print. Not everyone wants to read Stephen King or the other authors of the day, and not everything falls into the mass-market paperback category. -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm

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Re: [gutvol-d] Re: Problem in file retrieval
by Jim Tinsley 10 Jan '05

10 Jan '05

On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 18:51:37 +0100, Marcello Perathoner <marcello(a)perathoner.de> wrote: > >This is related to a recent change in the site programming which I am >testing. I redirect all deep links to files from external pages to the >bibrec page. I would never have noticed this, since I block referer information from my browser precisely to prevent sites doing this to me. However, despite having no personal problem with it, I suggest you reconsider. I think that we're coming from different angles at this question. What you regard as "deep links", I regard as "the texts" -- the things we're here to make and distribute. David, I suggest you change your pages to point to archive.org, or Sailor, or something. That will allow readers to access your books directly. I'm sure any sites, especially search sites, pointing to us whose webmasters notice this will do the same. jim

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Re: National Web library do-able, affordable, visionary
by Wallace J.McLean 10 Jan '05

10 Jan '05

Also contact the Librarian and Archivist of Canada, Mr. Ian Wilson: Ian.Wilson(a)lac-bac.gc.ca

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National Web library do-able, affordable, visionary
by Wallace J.McLean 10 Jan '05

10 Jan '05

Full text posted here 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.

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Moore's Law (was Murphy's Law)
by maitri venkat-ramani 10 Jan '05

10 Jan '05

Sorry, between my cold medicine intake and dealing with cantankerous video cards, it seems my Freudian slip was showing. Corrected message below. Laughs, Maitri --- maitri venkat-ramani <maitriv(a)yahoo.com> wrote: I don't see the usefulness of comparing our growth to Moore's Law as even recent advances in computing is rendering this Law obsolete. Take my world of geological visualization, for instance. As explained by one of the specialists at Landmark Graphics, "With Linux 64-bit, you can have an unlimited volume of RAM on the system. The historical limit for the 32-bit system was around 2GB. Now, we're seeing systems that have 16GB of memory. No longer does compute power double every 18 months at the same price ... when things scale by 10 times, it's no longer just faster - you're in a different world." Granted, my system is not going to run at full spec speed at any given time owing to bandwidth quirks, etc., but it sure outdoes Moore's Law nowadays. If we need something to which to compare our growth rates, we should define our own new baseline curve and see how our growth proceeds from there. Since I personally don't know how to create one of these benchmarks, I will stop here and let someone else recommend. Maitri __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Easier than ever with enhanced search. Learn more. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250

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Fwd: Check out City Journal Autumn 2004 | The Classics in the Slums by Jonath...
by Gutenberg9443＠aol.com 10 Jan '05

10 Jan '05

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Re: [gutvol-d] Re: German texts and the m-dash
by Joshua Hutchinson 10 Jan '05

10 Jan '05

Inka (I'm assuming that's who did the HTML version) must not have used any of GutCutter-style tools BilFlis over at DP created! ;) -- to — is not a requirement, as far as I know, but it is something that I see most people do. I see no problem with replacing -- with <space>—<space> in the HTML, though. It would be a very simply find/replace to do so, too. Josh ----- Original Message ----- From: "Karl Eichwalder" <ke(a)gnu.franken.de> To: gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: German texts and the m-dash Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 16:25:40 +0100 > > "Joshua Hutchinson" <joshua(a)hutchinson.net> writes: > > > In my experience, HTML files DO currently switch -- to > > Under those circumstances something went wrong with > http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/3/4/14340/14340-h/14340-h.htm . > > > However, the text files use -- because the entity equivalent > > doesn't exist in 7bit ASCII. > > That's okay. > > > I think I've seen this discussion before on DP forums. If I remember > > correctly, it was decided to stick to the xyz--xyz standard simply to > > avoid confusion and complication. > > I'm not sure whether the German reading community will get used to it ;-) > > -- > http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/ | ,__o > | _-\_<, > | (*)/'(*) > Key fingerprint = F138 B28F B7ED E0AC 1AB4 AA7F C90A 35C3 E9D0 5D1C > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d

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FW: [gutvol-d] Project Gutenberg Original Directory Structure
by John Hagerson 09 Jan '05

09 Jan '05

I believe that there would be an issue redirecting some links of the type napol* because we have the same book name in two different ebook* directories for two different eBooks. Steve Thomas wrote: That's great, exactly what I wanted -- and I see that napol10.zip also takes you to the catalog page. So I assume you are redirecting napol10.* Would it be possible to also redirect napol* -- so that you'd get the catalog page regardless of version? That would mean that anyone with an old link would then discover thru the catalog that there was a later version.

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