On Mar 2, 2005, at 8:42 AM, Stephen Forrest wrote:
On Wed, 2 Mar 2005 07:30:23 -0500, Stirling
Newberry wrote
Moreover, there is something that these projects
detract from, which
needs help - namely wikisource. For every Latinist trying to figure out
how to write about the java programming language, there is one less
latinist to work on creating a wikisource version of latin texts, and
so on. It seems to me if there is all this energy for languages that
exist as source text, then there should be some way of making
wikisource a more attractive outlet for people's energy.
Part of the appeal of original composition is that the contributor
need not worry about copyrights. Obviously the original source texts
(i.e. manuscripts) are public domain, but published editions are
copyrighted.
This is usually due to new material (commentary, footnotes, etc.) but
there may also be alterations or regularization performed on the
source text, so I don't think one can trust that even that is
unencumbered, unless you get your hands on a fully public-domain
version. (Which, it should go without saying, does not mean something
grabbed from any old place on the Internet.) I suspect this is easy
for well-known texts (e.g. Cicero, Virgil), but finding unencumbered
versions of more obscure classical authors might require some digging.
Id est "work".
I'm not disparaging original writing in old languages, merely noting
that there seems to be a great deal more enthusiasm for it, and
therefore if we want to direct more of that energy to forms that
benefit readers more, then something needs to be done to make that
work more attractive to people who can do it. I must admit that I am
guilty - as a classicist, I haven't put any time in on wikisource in
latin or koine, even though I keep telling myself I should.
Caton has been doing a tremendous job of including the French version of
many of these old texts on Wikisource. Stephen's interpretation of
copyright law is far too restrictive and impractical. A copyright
notice on a new edition of a classic is only copyright to the extent
that it can be copyright. No publisher is going to go through the new
edition to identify which details are copyright and which not. Common
sense needs to prevail. The new commentaries and footnotes are indeed
protected, but the minor variations that Stephen suggests are not
copyrightable. A totally new translation could be copyright, but nobody
is suggesting that we include those . . . unless some enthusiastic
Wikisourceror wants to create a new translation himself and contribute
it under GFDL.
Stirling, please don't suggest that people might need to work. It
scares them away. :-)
I think that many more of these old texts are available than Stephen
would have us believe. A lot of them are in back shelves of second hand
bookstores where few people ever look. Many dealers would be glad to
get rid of them, and there is some support for keeping them inches away
from the garbage pail. If that doesn't work, there's also ebay and
Abebooks. In other words, there are very few that cannot be easily found.
I agree too that we don't just want a lot of trained monkeys copying
things from the internet. If someone has already done the work and put
it on a reasonably stable site it is probably best left alone unless we
intend to add value to the work. Adding something that no other site
has is worth a lot more, but that involves an even more tedious kind of
work: scanning and proofreading.
I prefer not to get into the arguments about whether we should have
Wikipedias in obscure dead languages. I tend to take a
whatever-turns-you-on attitude. The value in these old languages is in
their original texts, and not in some supposed reincarnation that will
see discussions of 21st century issues in languages where nobody
maintains a conversation. The world is not well served by putting new
vinegar in old wine bottles.
Ec