Re: [PGCanada] Introductions, etc.
----- 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.
Hello list, I just got off the phone with a lawyer named Don Johnston who is aware of Project Gutenberg. He agrees that we need a corporation to indemnify the participants and he is willing to help us create a federally incorporated charity, pro bono. Unfortunately there are still costs. While significantly cheaper than they would otherwise be, they are none the less, significant. He said less than $1500 all inclusive. We would need to get some seed money to start. It would be tax deductible when we get our charitable status. I promise to find at least $300. Can others do something to put together the balance? If we can get all this done before year end. We can issue tax receipts for the coming tax return. James? Russell? Could we set something up on your respective websites to solicit money? It will have to be structured as a short term loan as you can't get charitable tax receipts for money donated before you have a charity. When we have a bonafide charity however, we can swap paper and issue tax receipts. Once we get a basic corporate and technological foundation in place, I'd say we also approach some of the more progressive publishers and other businesses in this field for donations. Hey, this might all become exciting, don't you think! cheers, darryl
"Wallace" == Wallace J McLean <ag737@freenet.carleton.ca> writes:
Wallace> ----- Original Message ----- From: Carlo Traverso Wallace> <traverso@dm.unipi.it> Date: Tuesday, November 9, 2004 Wallace> 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? Wallace> A legal one: Stuff that would be eligible for a Wallace> PG-Canada, and hence likely to draw even more Canadian Wallace> volunteers, can't always legally be done through Wallace> DP-INT. There are thousands of PD works under life+50 in Wallace> Canada that won't be eligible under the PG/DP American Wallace> copyright rules. We could do them in an all-Canadian Wallace> site, but not the existing PG/DP site. Wallace> Or, we can funnel it all through DP-EU, assuming that Wallace> there are no further complications legally. Do they Wallace> operate under life+50, and if so where are they Wallace> depositing their texts? They operate in serbia, life+50, the repository for non-PG clearable texts will be the announced PG-Europa (serbia too), announced to start in short time (this week maybe...). We have a backlog of posting for all the texts that we have done under life+50 rules. I expect to mutually mirror between the two sites. >> 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. Wallace> And on the other hand, an all-Canadian, or an Wallace> international non- national life+50 version of DP might Wallace> help draw more volunteers out of the woodwork. one of the main focus of DP-EU is to allow non-western alphabets. These include currently cyrillic, east-european (polish, chech, romanian...) greek and arabic characters (urdu). Most work however is done in english,(150 books) french(80) and serbian(140 books in 8 months of operation). A special emphasis has been posed into having user interfaces, documentation and discussion forums in different languages (currently 13 languages). Some of the more affectionate users of DP-EU are canadian, both english and french speaking. Wallace> On the Project Gutenberg business itself, setting aside Wallace> the big and valuable and important work done by the DP Wallace> annex, a Canadian branch plant would allow the "Canadian Wallace> editions" of PG texts -- whether transferred from PG Wallace> where eligible, or created under life+ rules outside the Wallace> US -- to get (free) ISBNs for those editions. This may Wallace> have usefulness down the road, as has been discussed on Wallace> the DP forums. ISBN would be great. I strongly support PG-CA, just DP-CA is IMHO a little premature, until DP-EU is further grown. Carlo
participants (3)
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Carlo Traverso -
Darryl Moore -
Wallace J.McLean