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The FreeLore Project was an early attempt to give away writing for free, paralleling what we now call Creative Commons, from 1992-94. It was connected with the GNU project. The maintainer was John Goodwin of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; several other people were also involved. Read the mailing list announcement and you'll see whiy this project may have been a little ahead of its time.
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Mailing list announcement
Newsgroups: alt.uu.future,comp.text.sgml,alt.etext From: [email protected] (John Goodwin) Subject: Educational E-Text Discussion List/SGML Editor Date: 13 Sep 1993 15:18 CST Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, AD/Controls Message-ID: <[email protected]> Lines: 136
The enclosed announcement contains information that should be of interest to this newsgroup.
John Goodwin
[email protected]
(1 enclosure) ------------
Thank you for your interest in the FreeLore Project.
This announcement gives instructions for joining the FREELORE mailing list and participating in the project.
The FreeLore Project is a volunteer effort to create and distribute free, useful electronic texts (E-texts). Our goal is to have a full library of such materials, covering as many subjects as we are able, by the year 2000. In addition, we are engaged in producing free software and instructional materials to aid others in creating, distributing, and sharing free E-texts. ( In particular, a free SGML-based Word Processor to run under the UNIX OS/2, and Windows operating systems.)
Of course, the production of free, useful materials takes place every day on the Internet, in the form of FAQs, newsletters, free programs, etc. The FreeLore Project exists to coordinate the efforts of persons wishing to make a concerted effort to create a core library of new texts covering a broad range of subjects and intended age levels. Our organization is modelled after similar projects to create free software.
Our objectives are to:
- Coordinate and spearhead an effort to produce new E-texts covering subjects not in the Public Domain;
- Provide volunteers to Project Gutenberg for the conversion to electronic text of materials already in the Public Domain;
- Create tools that empower the production and sharing of electronic text, such as free tutorial materials and programs;
- Raise the public's awareness-level about the Internet, Electronic Texts, and the educational opportunities they create; and to
- Provide a forum for discussing issues relating to the format, organization, cataloguing, etc. of Electronic Texts;
Coordination is primarily in the form of providing a communication channel for project participants. There is no centralized administration, newsletter, or archive site at this time. If and when significant materials are available, we will negotiate for a special directory at a high-profile FTP site. There are plenty of places that are happy to take freely available materials. The present problems are the dearth of freely available materials and their limited scope.
[...]
THE FREELORE MAILING LIST
The FreeLore Project mailing list ([email protected]) exists to foster communication among project volunteers. Suitable topics for discussion include, but are not limited to:
- Discussions of proposed programming or writing projects
- Discussions of how to format, organize, and catalog the materials created
- Discussion of standards, copyright issues and so on
- Updates from related projects
- Announcements of newly-authored works and their location
HOW TO JOIN THE LINUX WORD-PROCESSOR WORKING GROUP
Some members of the FreeLore Project are working on an SGML-based editor for use with the new (free) LINUX operating system. The FreeLore Project liason to the LINUX WP effort is Gavin Nicole ([email protected]). Detailed discussions take place on the LINUX-ACTIVISTS mailing list, on channel WORD. Interested members of the FreeLore Project are encouraged to join this forum.
To join the WORD send a message with the first line
X-Mn-admin: join word
to
[email protected]
Detailed instructions will appear again and periodically on the FREELORE mailing list.
This is the last communication about FreeLore you will receive without
subscribing. If you do not have E-mail access, you may write
The FreeLore Project P.O. Box 6022 St. Charles, IL 60174
+1 708 584 9628 (home) +1 708 840 8069 (work)
Thanks again for your interest,
=John Goodwin= [email protected]
Founding documents
"Unfortunately, the FreeLore Project appears to have died within a few years of its birth, perhaps because the timing was not right -- much of the discussion in the FreeLore Bulletins I was able to find centred on the need to find a standard form of markup for electronic texts, and a means of publically distributing them. There was only a brief mention of a new, experimental initiative at CERN in Switzerland known as the World Wide Web..." --Previous researcher
June 1994 GNU's Bulletin
FreeLore
A goal of the FreeLore Project is to do "serious" book-length writing,
and give it away for free. John Goodwin is now concentrating on writing
freelore and to show what it is by example (not unlike the FSF). You can
FTP his results from `world.std.com' in `/obi/Networking/John.Goodwin'.
To volunteer, contact `[email protected]'.
Texts produced
- http://theworld.com/obi/Networking/John.Goodwin/
- Copyleft licenses derived from FreeLore: one (now replaced with equivalent CC license), two, three