Re: Slightly Off Topic: GPL'ed Encyclopedia ?

[Gleef <gleef capital net>]

On Thu, 12 Nov 1998, Robert Soros wrote:
> 
> I know this isn't the place to post a question like this, but its the
> only mailing list I can post to :) Has any discussion or thought come
> of building a GPL'ed/GNU Encylopedia similar to Microsoft's Encarta ?

Not until now :-) (at least not that I've seen).  The problem is, the
software aspect of such a task is dwarfed by the gathering and writing of
the information.  It is probably best to come up with the documents first
(perhaps in DocBook?), and then worry about hacking something like
gnome-help to be a flashy front end to the data.


> Its a huge task and all sorts of problems would face it, in
> particular, copywrites and ownership questions (regarding the content)
> .. but what sort of ideas have been passed around about it ?

Get the articles from original submissions, not other encyclopedias; then
there is no copyright issue (well, a little, you do have to watch for
plagarism).  


> RMS would certainly love this, Information gpl'ed, free to use, share
> and distribute, and modifiable by the users to some degree.

He's not the only one :-)


> It would certainly look nice with a gnome interface on it too :) ( i had
> to make this relevant to the mailing list somehow, even if it is purely
> hypothetical)..

Yes, an Encyclopaedia Gnomica would be a cool thing, but any front end is
quite a way down the road for such a project.


> 140 million mexican school kids will be using gnome in the next few
> years, it would be nice if a project like this got started early...

Ack, translating this thing would be another immense task all its own.


If you want to start such a project, here's my advice:

*  Read Michael Stutz's excellent article on copylefting non-software
   documents at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/nonsoftware-copyleft.html

*  Talk to the people at OpenContent:
   http://www.opencontent.org/home.shtml

*  Talk to the people at FIG: http://www.fig.org

*  Go to the library and study a variety of paper encyclopedias, as well
   as looking at the computer ones.

*  Talk to some college professors in various fields.  You are looking for
   two things, skilled editorial staff and hundreds of submissions
   (students could be great for that).

*  Get the editorial staff together first, before you take submissions.
   Most encyclopedias have dozens of editors.

*  Decide on a data format before you accept submissions.  I recommend
   DocBook, it's ugly to read, but easy to write, and easy to convert to a
   variety of presentation formats.  It's also very standard.

*  Find someone to donate webspace, ftp space and many mailing lists to
   your project.  A cvs server might help too.

A worthy project, but not ready for GNOMEs yet :-).

Best of Luck,
-Gleef