www/encyclopedia free-encyclopedia-1998-draft.h...

[Ali Reza Hayati]

CVSROOT:        /web/www
Module name:    www
Changes by:     Ali Reza Hayati <arh>   21/01/01 10:11:25

Added files:
        encyclopedia   : free-encyclopedia-1998-draft.html 
                         free-encyclopedia-1998-draft.txt 

Log message:
        Fixed the drafts (changed the years)

CVSWeb URLs:
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/encyclopedia/free-encyclopedia-1998-draft.html?cvsroot=www&rev=1.1
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/encyclopedia/free-encyclopedia-1998-draft.txt?cvsroot=www&rev=1.1

Patches:
Index: free-encyclopedia-1998-draft.html
===================================================================
RCS file: free-encyclopedia-1998-draft.html
diff -N free-encyclopedia-1998-draft.html
--- /dev/null   1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0000
+++ free-encyclopedia-1998-draft.html   1 Jan 2021 15:11:24 -0000       1.1
@@ -0,0 +1,208 @@
+<!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" -->
+<!-- Parent-Version: 1.79 -->
+<title>The Free Universal Encyclopedia and Learning Resource (1998 draft)
+- GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
+<!--#include virtual="/encyclopedia/po/free-encyclopedia.translist" -->
+<!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" -->
+<h2>The Free Universal Encyclopedia and Learning Resource - (1998 draft)</h2>
+
+<img src="/encyclopedia/logo.png" alt=" [Encyclopedia logo] " class="imgright" 
style="width:10.6em" />
+
+<h3><a href="/encyclopedia/free-encyclopedia.html">Latest Version</a></h3>
+
+<p>by <strong>Richard Stallman</strong></p>
+
+<i>This is a 1998 draft of my plan for a free universal encyclopedia plus
+learning resource.  I sent it to the organizer of a conference, and
+spoke about it there; I assumed that they were publishing the text
+  below, but in fact they did not.</i>
+
+<p>The World Wide Web has the potential to develop into a universal
+encyclopedia and a library of interactive self-teaching materials,
+covering all subjects at all levels, all freely accessible for
+everyone in the world.  Given the number of people who will be in a
+position to contribute, this is the most natural way for the web to
+  develop if left to itself.</p>
+
+<p>But this development is not inevitable; corporations are mobilizing to
+direct the future on a different course, in which they restrict the
+use of learning materials so as to extract money from people who want
+to learn.  How can we ensure that progress continues towards this best
+  and most natural outcome?  Here are some ideas.</p>
+
+<h4>Evangelize.</h4>
+<p>Since we hope that professors and students at many universities around
+the US and the world will join in writing articles for the free
+encyclopedia, let's not leave this to chance.  There are already
+scattered examples of what can be done.  Let's present these examples
+systematically to the academic community, show the vision of the free
+  universal encyclopedia, and invite for others to join in writing it.</p>
+
+<h4>Small steps will do the job.</h4>
+<p>When a project is exciting, it is easy to imagine a big contribution
+that you would like to make, bite off more than you can chew, and
+  ultimately give up with nothing to show for it.</p>
+
+<p>So it is important to welcome and encourage smaller contributions.
+Writing a textbook for a whole semester's material is a big job, and
+few teachers will have the time to contribute that much.  But writing
+about a topic small enough for one meeting of a class is a manageable
+job, and many of these small maps can survey the whole world of
+  knowledge.</p>
+
+<h4>Don't limit the scope.</h4>
+<p>The free encyclopedia has the potential to provide articles and
+self-teaching materials on every imaginable topic.  It should cover
+all academic subjects from mathematics to art history, and practical
+subjects as well.  It should cover them at all levels which are
+useful, ranging from kindergarten to graduate school.
+</p>
+
+<p>A useful encyclopedia entry will address a specific topic at a
+particular level, and each author will contribute mainly by focusing
+on an area that he or she knows very well.  But we should keep in the
+back of our minds the vision of an free encyclopedia that is universal
+  in scope, and firmly reject any attempt to limit it.</p>
+
+<h4>Access for everyone.</h4>
+<p>The universal encyclopedia should be open to public access by everyone
+who can access the web.  There are some who seek to gain control over
+educational materials, so they can profit by restricting access to
+them; they will push for us to "compromise" by agreeing to restrict
+access.  Here we must stand firm.
+</p>
+
+<h4>Permit mirror sites.</h4>
+<p>When information is available on the web only at one site, its
+availability is vulnerable.  Any sort of local problem--a computer
+crash, an earthquake or flood, a budget cut, a change in policy of the
+school administration--could cut off access for everyone.  To guard
+against loss of the encyclopedia's material, we should make sure that
+every article can be available in more than one place, and that new
+  places can be added if some disappear.</p>
+
+<p>There is no need to set up an organization or a bureaucracy to do
+this, because Internet users like to set up "mirror sites" providing
+duplicate copies of interesting web pages, and will do it on their
+own.  But we do have to make sure they are legally allowed to do it.
+So each article should explicitly grant irrevocable permission for
+anyone to make verbatim copies available on mirror sites.  This
+permission should be one of the basic stated principles of the free
+  encyclopedia.</p>
+
+<p>Some day there may be systematic efforts to ensure that all parts of
+the encyclopedia are replicated in many copies--perhaps at least once
+on each of the six inhabited continents.  This would be a natural
+extension of the mission of archiving that libraries undertake today.
+But there is no need to make plans for this now.  It is sufficient to
+  keep door open for people to do it later.</p>
+
+<h4>Permit translation into other languages.</h4>
+<p>People will have a use for encyclopedia articles on each topic in any
+and all human languages.  But the primary language of the Internet--as
+of the world of commerce and science today--is English.  So it may
+happen that contributions in English will outstrip other languages,
+and that the encyclopedia will as approach completeness in English
+  long before other languages.</p>
+
+<p>If this is what happens, trying to fight it would be self-defeating.
+It would be much wiser to let the English version serve as a stepping
+stone for versions in other languages.  However, in order for this to
+  happen, we must we avoid policies that could block it from happening.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, a basic principle of the free encyclopedia should be that
+accurate translations are always permitted, and each article should
+carry a statement permitting such translations.  The author of the
+original page can reserve the right to insist on corrections in a
+translation, to make it more accurate, but the translator's right to
+publish a translation should not be in question as long as the
+  requested corrections are made.</p>
+
+<h4>Take the long view.</h4>
+<p>If it takes twenty years to complete the free encyclopedia, we should
+not feel impatient.  That will be a blink of the eye in comparison
+with the history of literature, a moment in the history of
+  encyclopedias.</p>
+
+<p>In projects like this, progress is slow for the first few years; then
+it accelerates as more and more people join in, and eventually
+avalanches.  It makes sense to choose the first steps to illustrate
+what can be done, and to spread interest in the long-term goal to
+  inspire others to join in.</p>
+
+<p>This means that the pioneers' job, in the early years, is above all to
+be steadfast.  We must be on guard against downgrading to a less
+complete, less thorough goal because of the magnitude of the task.
+Instead of measuring our early steps against the size of the whole
+job, we should think of them as examples, and have confidence that
+they will inspire more and more contributors to join and finish the
+  job.</p>
+
+<p>Copyright 1998 Richard Stallman<br />
+  Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</p>
+
+</div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above -->
+<!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" -->
+<div id="footer">
+<div class="unprintable">
+
+<p>Please send general FSF &amp; GNU inquiries to
+<a href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org";>&lt;gnu@gnu.org&gt;</a>.
+There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a>
+the FSF.  Broken links and other corrections or suggestions can be sent
+to <a href="mailto:webmasters@gnu.org";>&lt;webmasters@gnu.org&gt;</a>.</p>
+
+<p><!-- TRANSLATORS: Ignore the original text in this paragraph,
+        replace it with the translation of these two:
+
+        We work hard and do our best to provide accurate, good quality
+        translations.  However, we are not exempt from imperfection.
+        Please send your comments and general suggestions in this regard
+        to <a href="mailto:web-translators@gnu.org";>
+        &lt;web-translators@gnu.org&gt;</a>.</p>
+
+        <p>For information on coordinating and submitting translations of
+        our web pages, see <a
+        href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
+        README</a>. -->
+Please see the <a
+href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
+README</a> for information on coordinating and submitting translations
+of this article.</p>
+</div>
+
+<!-- Regarding copyright, in general, standalone pages (as opposed to
+     files generated as part of manuals) on the GNU web server should
+     be under CC BY-ND 4.0.  Please do NOT change or remove this
+     without talking with the webmasters or licensing team first.
+     Please make sure the copyright date is consistent with the
+     document.  For web pages, it is ok to list just the latest year the
+     document was modified, or published.
+     
+     If you wish to list earlier years, that is ok too.
+     Either "2001, 2002, 2003" or "2001-2003" are ok for specifying
+     years, as long as each year in the range is in fact a copyrightable
+     year, i.e., a year in which the document was published (including
+     being publicly visible on the web or in a revision control system).
+     
+     There is more detail about copyright years in the GNU Maintainers
+     Information document, www.gnu.org/prep/maintain. -->
+
+<p>Copyright &copy; 1998, 2001, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2013, 2014, 
2016, 2020
+Free Software Foundation, Inc.</p>
+
+<p>This page is licensed under a <a rel="license"
+href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/";>Creative
+Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.</p>
+
+<!--#include virtual="/server/bottom-notes.html" -->
+
+<p class="unprintable">Updated:
+<!-- timestamp start -->
+$Date: 2021/01/01 15:11:24 $
+<!-- timestamp end -->
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+</body>
+</html>

Index: free-encyclopedia-1998-draft.txt
===================================================================
RCS file: free-encyclopedia-1998-draft.txt
diff -N free-encyclopedia-1998-draft.txt
--- /dev/null   1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0000
+++ free-encyclopedia-1998-draft.txt    1 Jan 2021 15:11:24 -0000       1.1
@@ -0,0 +1,140 @@
+This is a 1998 version of my plan for a free universal encyclopedia
+plus learning resource. I sent it to the organizer of an ACM SIGCSE
+conference scheduled for March 26, 1999, and spoke about the plan
+there; I assumed that they were publishing something about my talk,
+such as the text below, but in fact they did not. Crossed signals, I
+guess.
+
+
+The Free Universal Encyclopedia and Learning Resource
+-- Richard Stallman
+
+
+The World Wide Web has the potential to develop into a universal
+encyclopedia and a library of interactive self-teaching materials,
+covering all subjects at all levels, all freely accessible for
+everyone in the world. Given the number of people who will be in a
+position to contribute, this is the most natural way for the web to
+develop if left to itself.
+
+But this development is not inevitable; corporations are mobilizing to
+direct the future on a different course, in which they restrict the
+use of learning materials so as to extract money from people who want
+to learn. How can we ensure that progress continues towards this best
+and most natural outcome? Here are some ideas.
+
+* Evangelize.
+
+Since we hope that professors and students at many universities around
+the US and the world will join in writing articles for the free
+encyclopedia, let's not leave this to chance. There are already
+scattered examples of what can be done. Let's present these examples
+systematically to the academic community, show the vision of the free
+universal encyclopedia, and invite for others to join in writing it.
+
+* Small steps will do the job.
+
+When a project is exciting, it is easy to imagine a big contribution
+that you would like to make, bite off more than you can chew, and
+ultimately give up with nothing to show for it.
+
+So it is important to welcome and encourage smaller contributions.
+Writing a textbook for a whole semester's material is a big job, and
+few teachers will have the time to contribute that much. But writing
+about a topic small enough for one meeting of a class is a manageable
+job, and many of these small maps can survey the whole world of
+knowledge.
+
+* Don't limit the scope.
+
+The free encyclopedia has the potential to provide articles and
+self-teaching materials on every imaginable topic. It should cover
+all academic subjects from mathematics to art history, and practical
+subjects as well. It should cover them at all levels which are
+useful, ranging from kindergarten to graduate school.
+
+A useful encyclopedia entry will address a specific topic at a
+particular level, and each author will contribute mainly by focusing
+on an area that he or she knows very well. But we should keep in the
+back of our minds the vision of an free encyclopedia that is universal
+in scope, and firmly reject any attempt to limit it.
+
+* Access for everyone.
+
+The universal encyclopedia should be open to public access by everyone
+who can access the web. There are some who seek to gain control over
+educational materials, so they can profit by restricting access to
+them; they will push for us to "compromise" by agreeing to restrict
+access. Here we must stand firm.
+
+* Permit mirror sites.
+
+When information is available on the web only at one site, its
+availability is vulnerable. Any sort of local problem--a computer
+crash, an earthquake or flood, a budget cut, a change in policy of the
+school administration--could cut off access for everyone. To guard
+against loss of the encyclopedia's material, we should make sure that
+every article can be available in more than one place, and that new
+places can be added if some disappear.
+
+There is no need to set up an organization or a bureaucracy to do
+this, because Internet users like to set up "mirror sites" providing
+duplicate copies of interesting web pages, and will do it on their
+own. But we do have to make sure they are legally allowed to do it.
+So each article should explicitly grant irrevocable permission for
+anyone to make verbatim copies available on mirror sites. This
+permission should be one of the basic stated principles of the free
+encyclopedia.
+
+Some day there may be systematic efforts to ensure that all parts of
+the encyclopedia are replicated in many copies--perhaps at least once
+on each of the six inhabited continents. This would be a natural
+extension of the mission of archiving that libraries undertake today.
+But there is no need to make plans for this now. It is sufficient to
+keep door open for people to do it later.
+
+* Permit translation into other languages.
+
+People will have a use for encyclopedia articles on each topic in any
+and all human languages. But the primary language of the Internet--as
+of the world of commerce and science today--is English. So it may
+happen that contributions in English will outstrip other languages,
+and that the encyclopedia will as approach completeness in English
+long before other languages.
+
+If this is what happens, trying to fight it would be self-defeating.
+It would be much wiser to let the English version serve as a stepping
+stone for versions in other languages. However, in order for this to
+happen, we must we avoid policies that could block it from happening.
+
+Therefore, a basic principle of the free encyclopedia should be that
+accurate translations are always permitted, and each article should
+carry a statement permitting such translations. The author of the
+original page can reserve the right to insist on corrections in a
+translation, to make it more accurate, but the translator's right to
+publish a translation should not be in question as long as the
+requested corrections are made.
+
+* Take the long view.
+
+If it takes twenty years to complete the free encyclopedia, we should
+not feel impatient. That will be a blink of the eye in comparison
+with the history of literature, a moment in the history of
+encyclopedias.
+
+In projects like this, progress is slow for the first few years; then
+it accelerates as more and more people join in, and eventually
+avalanches. It makes sense to choose the first steps to illustrate
+what can be done, and to spread interest in the long-term goal to
+inspire others to join in.
+
+This means that the pioneers' job, in the early years, is above all to
+be steadfast. We must be on guard against downgrading to a less
+complete, less thorough goal because of the magnitude of the task.
+Instead of measuring our early steps against the size of the whole
+job, we should think of them as examples, and have confidence that
+they will inspire more and more contributors to join and finish the
+job.
+
+Copyright 1999 Richard Stallman
+Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License