All,
Forgive the intrusion. After Jaime Nubiola forwarded Steven Zenith's mail
to me, I thought I would respond here on the list (rather than bother Jaime
further personally). I have no interest in a long drawn-out discussion--I
simply wished to correct a few factual errors in Steven's post.
First, let me grant that the digitaluniverse.net website's strategy at
present isn't the best. It was originally designed with a view to potential
users rather than potential contributors. The Web design team decided a few
weeks ago to entirely rework the website--a new one should be out within a
few weeks, I hope.
FWIW. I know of the ManyOne project and have tried before to understand
what they are trying to do. Digital Universe is designed to promote
that project.
ManyOne is not a project; it is a technology service company. The DU is the
content-creation project. Also, not the claim itself but the converse is
true: in a perfectly straightforward factual sense, ManyOne is designed to
support and promote the nonprofit, free-as-in-freedom DU. That really is
the *purpose* of ManyOne.
However, it requires you to download the ManyOne
application suite - a new browser - to subscribe PLUS they want to up
sell Internet services to you.
We (= the DU and ManyOne) agree completely that one should not have to use a
new browser to see the content. This should be fixed by the end of April,
when we launch a browser-neutral website that requires neither a download
nor a login to view. In fact, this has long been our plan (although of
course Steven had no way of knowing all this!).
Bear in mind that the browser and DU will always be free of charge, and the
vast bulk of the content will always be free (i.e., open content).
Including the entire encyclopedia and almost everything else too. The
*purpose* of the DU is to aggregate and organize the world's reliable free
information in one place.
While I certainly appreciate the need to
support projects like this, it seems unnecessarily complex and it's
value is unclear.
Its value will be tremendous and beyond doubt, if we succeed. The interface
and project will both be about as complex as the finest free information
resource and its supporting community would have to be--which is to say,
pretty complex, but not unnecessarily so. For one thing, we are already
using a wiki for the Encyclopedia of Earth (not publicly viewable yet).
This could be resolved perhaps if they simply
redesigned their interface and presentation of their vision (for which
there is no clear statement unless it is that they think they have a
better browser).
We agree on both counts and we're already working on it. In a few weeks a
new "introduction to DU" website will be launched that will contain much
more and much clearer information than what we have up there now. It will,
in particular, have a lot more information *for potential contributors*.
In particular, it is not clear that the encyclopedia is free in the
sense of the Creative Commons.
Again you're right that that's not adequately clear, although it will be in
the new website. Lawrence Lessig (Mr. Creative Commons) is on our Board of
Advisors and has made a specific recommendation about which CC license we
should use. We are 100% committed to being a free/open content/Creative
Commons project.
They do not appear to use a license that permits free use of copies,
which is especially important for the third world and in working-class
initiatives.
If it doesn't appear that way, that's a problem. Because the fact is that
our recommended license will permit such use. Our freedom is one of our
main virtues, and we should be much more explicit about it.
Further, there is no statement about their transparency policy and I
saw no author profiles.
See: http://www.digitaluniverse.net/understand/foundation/
And: http://www.earthportal.net/about/leadership/
There isn't a list of Encyclopedia of Earth authors yet, though, which is
long and very impressive--there will be.
The sign up process seems unnecessarily
intimidating.
For Stewards, we think the sign-up process is sober and serious, but also as
brief as possible, and it should be; we want the project to be run by the
leaders of every field.
For everyone else, it won't be intimidating at all. Right now we're just
collecting e-mail addresses:
http://www.digitaluniverse.net/create/content/contributions/
On the upside, they do appear to have funding - but why all the
commerce and channeling of money? :-)
The short answer is: because experts will not, in the long run, work for
free; there must be a way to pay for their participation. More generally, a
nonprofit project of this size cannot reach its maximum potential unless
there is a robust flow of cash supporting it. Pretending otherwise will
doom any project to mediocrity. Even Wikipedia needs significant cash to
keep going.
As far as I'm concerned, though, I agree with you on this: there is no
excuse for giving what is essentially an academic/professional project a
commercial appearance. But that, again, is being changed.
I didn't mean to be unnecessarily defensive or long-winded in the above, but
I fear I might have been. If so, that would be because, as a philosopher
myself, I value the opinions and potential support and participation of
anyone who is a fan of Peirce.
--Larry Sanger
----------------
Director of Distributed Content Programs, Digital Universe Foundation
100 Enterprise Way, Suite G370, Scotts Valley, CA 95066
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.digitaluniverse.net/
---
Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED]
