On Fri, Dec 04, 2009 at 07:40:14PM -0800, James Adcock wrote:
Not sure I understand the question, but I think I have already offered the files to the Kindle community. See freekindlebooks.org - A site I created a couple years ago when PG said it wasn't interested in supporting the ebook community. Now PG decided it DOES want to offer EPUB and MOBI file format support. So then I say, OK now that you are offering EPUB and MOBI file format support, why not go the last 1% of the way and do what is necessary to *really* make it useful to the ebook community? But when I ask that question, I get beaten up. Which I don't understand.
Jim, I sense your frustration. I'll try to explain a couple of things. (I was writing this on a plane, and sending now, but see Michael already said much the same thing.) What you might not realize is that there are really only two people who have access to edit the main content on gutenberg.org: Marcello, and me. I mostly make very small changes, and try not to break things. That's just the way it is -- so, development by additional people, like you, needs to happen elsewhere. There is no "PG" who is doing, or failing to do, things you'd like to see at gutenberg.org. It's simply a lack of a labor pool, and, to some extent, a lack of knowing just what to do (or at least, what YOU'd like done). You've been encouraged in a couple of ways to go for it. If there is something you need to demonstrate your ideas, I will try to help. The only thing I don't have is someone to do it for you, or to pick up on your examples and apply them to gutenberg.org. The thing that motivates Michael, and me, is giving away eBooks. We have taken great pains over the years (Michael since 1971, me since 1991, and with involvement of many other people) to make sure that the colection's contents can continue to be enjoyed for many years in the future. This is where the appearance of resistance to new formats comes from: we have a few formats in the collection that we can no longer easily fix or regenerate, and some (just a few) files for which no contemporary reader exists. So, for a little while, we have been instead emphasizing automatic conversion to new formats -- rather than storing them as part of the main collection.
Its not that I am just being impossible. It's that I really don't understand WHY PG WOULDN'T want to support the ebook community? To me ebook readers are the obvious and natural way to be reading PG texts. As opposed to what, printing them out on your teletype? Or dragging around a laptop and tied to a WIFI connection so you can read in HTML format doesn't seem like a particularly happy reading experience to me! And reading through the peephole of a cellphone makes as much sense to me as distributing PG texts one line at a time via fortune cookies. If one is going thru the pain and trouble of making electronic texts, why not make them as pleasant and fun to read as a paperback novel?
As far as "PG" goes (in the microcosm of where Michael's leadership points us), it's all good. We have never said, "thou shalt only access content with a fully-featured computer." We do have some expectations for files that we add to the collection, but that is behind the scenes. For the humans that want to access an eBook, more methods for more devices are good. Since conversion on the fly often offers an easy way to provide immediate access to different formats, or even different converters for the same format, it can be quite easy to add a new converter. In this thread, we've been talking about transforming the rest of the site (not just the eBooks, but also stuff like the catalog pages and Wiki pages) so it is friendlier for eReaders and other devices. Marcello does have some plans for this, but there is room for more than one implementation...and for experimentation. I think my main message is: It's important not to mistake the debate & cricitism on gutvol-d, or elsewhere, as somehow stopping you from doing things. Or from those things to become "official." Also, on deep linking (a comment from another message you sent): Marcello already mentioned that there are exceptions, and your sites qualify. Go ahead & do it.
heck, i'd even think you could charge a dollar or two for these files, and release them as kindle-books, available in the kindle store, and make a few bucks to subsidize your work, not to mention help out the whole kindle scene.
Again, go for it. Charging money for content isn't PG's bailiwick, but don't let that stop you. At least a few people make or made a reasonable portion of their livelihood with PG content. It's ok to do, and we'll even link to your site. More: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Permission_How-To -- Greg Newby Dr. Gregory B. Newby Chief Executive and Director Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation http://gutenberg.org A 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization with EIN 64-6221541 gbnewby@pglaf.org
Don't need the buck here and there actually, -- but you need only look at the amazon.com Kindle books section to see that 100s of other people are doing exactly what you suggest. My counter-question would be if PG is doing 99% of the work already, why not put in the last 1% so that PG gets the credit for the good work and can put a link in there that says "hey if you like PG's good work then how about making a small donation to PG [as opposed to donating to Amazon -- which takes the lion's share of the fees from downloaded books from their website] ??? Gosh, I work hard to try to get donations for PG and I just get told what an evil person I am! Again, all I want is free electronic books that are easy and pleasant to read - in honest to god practice not in theory!