[Bug-gnupedia] A Free Cyclopedia

[David Tanzer]

I read that the word "encyclopedia" was used by the ancient Greeks in a 
very broad sense, to designate the "circle of learning."  Therefore, I think 
we may extend the notion of what is an encyclopedia beyond the exact 
literary form that printed encyclopedias have taken, as long as we keep 
within the spirit of the circle of learning.  Useful tables from an almanac, 
and even online courses belong squarely within the circle of learning.  

On the other hand, an encyclopedia should be an organized source of knowledge.  
Hence there is an important role to be played by editors/helpers, in order
to make sure that it doesn't degenerate from a circle of learning into a 
babble of opinions.  And yes, I know that the transition between knowledge 
and opinion is fuzzy, but that doesn't mean that there is not a real 
distinction between them.  We should be striving for truth.

Cyclopedia is actually a word in the dictionary, it's a little-used 
variant on Encyclopedia.  Therefore, both GNUcyclopedia and FreeCyclopedia 
are descriptive names.  I like them both.  (But I have some ambivalence 
about FreeCyclopedia, because of the ambiguity in "Free.") 

As I posted before, I was planning a free cyclopedia for the last year. 
Raoul Daruwala suggested the name gnucyclopedia, but I didn't want to step 
into GNU's territory, so I went with freecyclopedia.  I didn't get
much farther than obtaining the domains freecyclopedia.org/net/com.  
If the GNU project should ever want to go with FreeCyclopedia, I'm willing 
to turn over these domains.  For Free :)

Dave Tanzer