[15704] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Re: Project Gutenberg Milestones!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sloan, Bernie)
Fri Mar 4 20:25:52 2005
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Message-ID: <B541AA7C7356014BA26BE8A5D72B89AF766BC1@pbmail.ui.uillinois.edu>
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 22:56:03 -0600
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU>
From: "Sloan, Bernie" <bernies@UILLINOIS.EDU>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
OK...for some reason I was going to refrain from commenting on Michael
Hart's posting, but since Dan Lester raised the question...
I respect what Project Gutenberg has done. But I also agree with Dan.
It's about time that Project Gutenberg started reporting on the actual
number of texts that have been downloaded, rather than speculating about
how such-and-such a percentage of the world's population MIGHT have
downloaded all the PG titles.
Michael Hart is doing PG a big disservice by making such grandiose
claims, e.g., that PG "has given away one trillion eBooks".
Bernie Sloan
-----Original Message-----
From: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum
[mailto:PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU] On Behalf Of Dan Lester
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2005 7:59 AM
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Subject: Re: Project Gutenberg Milestones!
Wednesday, March 2, 2005, 10:47:47 AM, you wrote:
MH> Project Gutenberg Has Given Away ONE
MH> TRILLION eBooks!!!
I respect the good works that PG is doing, but I REALLY get tired of
this kind of nonsense. And I thought the folks marketing on late
night TV, or the shopping channels were bad. Yes, multiplying the 64
million people that are one percent of the population times the number
of Gutenberg books gives you a number over a trillion.
But, does Mr. Hart really expect us to believe that each of those 64
million have actually downloaded ALL of those books? If so, I'd like
to see some proof in the form of the world's largest webserver logs.
I'd also wonder what kind of bandwidth the server farm that could
handle this load had available to it, and where this massive operation
was located.
If Mr. Hart said something like "has the potential to give away"
rather than "has given away", it would be slightly more believable. Of
course even that would require that every person on earth would have
downloaded an average of over 150 ebooks. And candidly, other than
someone building a clone of PG for a library or organization, I'm
reasonably certain that no more than a handful of people have ever
downloaded as many as a hundred ebooks, much less read them in that
format.
Marketing the Project is good. But when this kind of nonsense is
spouted, it really hurts the reputation of a good project by making it
so totally laughable. Even Ron Popeil doesn't spout this kind of
nonsense when he's selling you a Vegematic or other project.
dan
--
Dan Lester, Data Wrangler dan@RiverOfData.com 208-283-7711
3577 East Pecan, Boise, Idaho 83716-7115 USA
www.riverofdata.com Fair is whatever God decides to do.
