----- Original Message ----- From: Carlo Traverso <traverso@dm.unipi.it> Date: Tuesday, November 9, 2004 2:43 pm Subject: Re: [PGCanada] Introductions, etc.
Does this have a technical motivation? (for example, avoid the complications of UTF-8 being life+50) Or just to have a companion to PG-CA?
A legal one: Stuff that would be eligible for a PG-Canada, and hence likely to draw even more Canadian volunteers, can't always legally be done through DP-INT. There are thousands of PD works under life+50 in Canada that won't be eligible under the PG/DP American copyright rules. We could do them in an all-Canadian site, but not the existing PG/DP site. Or, we can funnel it all through DP-EU, assuming that there are no further complications legally. Do they operate under life+50, and if so where are they depositing their texts?
The effort to bring up a DP site is non negligeable, much more than overcoming the utf-8 barier; DP-EU still has space to grow, and will surely welcome new forces. For example, our waiting lists are empty, anything that you want to post is welcome. When DP-EU has grown, and canadian squirrels matured, detaching a canadian clone might be much easier. Currently, a division of efforts might create problems to both.
And on the other hand, an all-Canadian, or an international non- national life+50 version of DP might help draw more volunteers out of the woodwork. On the Project Gutenberg business itself, setting aside the big and valuable and important work done by the DP annex, a Canadian branch plant would allow the "Canadian editions" of PG texts -- whether transferred from PG where eligible, or created under life+ rules outside the US -- to get (free) ISBNs for those editions. This may have usefulness down the road, as has been discussed on the DP forums.