Ray Saintonge wrote:
As much as I support the underlying concepts of this
proposal, I
believe it has to wait until the "foundation" is in place. This will
be a modest revenue generating venture which will need to have a place
to deposit its money, and will also need to manage costs related to
producing printed books. Those costs can be significant.
Besides the obvious benefit of having the Wikipedia available to a
larger audience, physical publication will also be helpful in
guaranteeing that the open licence nature of Wikipedia is protected
for a long time after the present contributors are gone. Being able
to produce a printed text at that time will be prima facie proof that
the person using it cannot legally override the open licence with his
own copyright.
In short: a great idea but still premature.
Thanks for the complement, but I think the guys at FSF who created FDL,
had something like this in mind already.
from your reply I was felt you were suggesting Wiki printing books. I
realize such an idea is "premature" at present, but if in my proposal on
my website(
www.geocities.com/abioommen ), you will see that I am not
suggesting that Wiki print the books, but provide mailing lists to
interested editors to work together and once their work is good, I'm
sure publishing houses will themselves print the books. And since it
must remain under FDL, these books will be relatively much cheaper.
Please read my proposal( its still in executive summary stage) and tell
me what you think of it.
--Abhishek
PS:Sorry I'm replying so late, my mail client was malfunctioning