[governance] Sad news

[Deirdre Williams]

One aspect of governance is access.
I learned today from Bytesforall of the death of Michael Hart - the Project
Gutenberg man.
Below is the end of the article published by Bytesforall which I think
originated as a Guardian obituary.

In 1998, Wired magazine named Hart to its "Wired 25," a list of people
around the world who were "actively, even hyperactively, inventing
tomorrow."

Hart had his critics. He was often disparaged by academics, who complained
of typographical and other errors in Project Gutenberg books. He was not
beloved in the traditional publishing world, which he often attacked for
profiting on the works of long-dead writers. He disapproved of U.S.
copyright laws, which keep popular works out of the public domain for
decades after an author has died.

Hart dismissed his critics' attacks.

"I'm not doing this to make the academic community happy," he told the
Chicago Tribune in 1999. He aimed to serve the masses. "I am a revolutionary
in this neo-industrial revolution. That's why they have trouble with me. How
can anyone be troubled by free information? "

*elaine.woo@ latimes.com <%2Aelaine.woo%40latimes.com>*

Deirdre
-- 
“The fundamental cure for poverty is not money but knowledge" Sir William
Arthur Lewis, Nobel Prize Economics, 1979
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20110923/58b77a15/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t