On Tue, 14 Dec 2004, Roy Lewis wrote:
What is Michael Hart's take on the latest from Google? I wonder how this will impact Project Gutenberg? Will this do what you have been trying to do but with a LOTS of MONEY behind it?
Roy Lewis Garland, TX
Today is the day I have to write and send the Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter, and I have only 2:20 to the deadline, so I hope you will allow me to come back to answer that in a bit, but if you have a specific question I hope I can answer right away. However, I think you will find that these billion dollar giants don't actually have anything in mind that would be definable as an eBook as the term has been being use. . .i.e. you can't keep it, you can't print it, you can't cut and paste quotations that are more than a "snippet," as they call it, you can't make your own concordance, index, edition, or carry a million dollars of retail value books with you on a DVD or two. In addition, I guarantee that Project Gutenberg will be the first to offer such a "Million Dollar DVD" of eBooks, and will be the first to present a collection of 50,000 eBooks, and, most liklely will be the first to offer 100,000 eBooks for any kind of service, but certainly for free download. As for getting into the millions, I'm going to wait until we're approaching 100,000 to focus all that tightly on getting into 7 figures of eBooks. BTW, they said 15 million eBooks. . .and I'm not sure they HAVE 15 million eBooks that they can legally use in the worldwide service they announced yesterday. I'd certainly be willing to bet dinner on it! More later, Thanks!!! So Nice To Hear From You! Happy Holidays!!! Michael Give FreeBooks!!! In 39 Languages!!! As of December 12, 2004 ~14,683 FreeBooks at: ~317 to go to 15,000 http://www.gutenberg.org http://www.gutenberg.net We are ~96% of the way from 10,000 to 15,000. Now even more PG eBooks In 104 Languages!!! http://gutenberg.cc http://gutenberg.us Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> Project Gutenberg Executive Coordinator^M "*Internet User ~#100*" If you do not receive a prompt reply, please resend, keep resending.