Wikipedia May be Offered in CD, DVD or Print
Jimmy Wales, who founded Wikipedia, says they are considering making it available offline in CD, DVD or printed versions.
He said content from the Web site may also be burned onto CDs and DVDs so computer users in places like Africa, who lack access to high-speed Internet, could consult parts of the reference work offline.
I actually think this is a good idea, although I don't know if the whole thing will fit on one disc.
- Y! MyWeb
Isn't Wikipedia's great plus..
..that it is updated/changed on a daily basis.
The Oxford English Dictionary updates in print every "n" years, and it is a big deal when it does.
Why buy a Wikipedia CD or book, when "better" dictionaries are available in those forms?
If I understand it correctly
If I understand it correctly they are giving it away for free. Raises the bar if you are selling a dictionary or encyclopedia.
free?
graywolf, where did you get the "giving it away for free" idea? i'm a challenged reader at best, so i don't dispute what you're saying, i just didn't see it. in a previous article jimmy goes on to say how they're so reliant on contributions and fundraisers to make the bandwidth and hardware costs feasible, reliant on uncompensated editors to vet the text, etc.
to me, that sounds like they're running pretty lean, and the administrative overhead and fixed costs necessary to burn the whole corpus onto cd's, or dvd's, or PRINT, and then identify needy areas and cover shipping costs to them sounds like a monster of a task. hardly the sort of thing that could be funded in any meaningful way by paypal contributions or fundraisers.... even if they're talking to "several agents and publishing companies" as jimmy suggests, i can't imagine any of these companies would be willing to take it on the chin just to do something nice on a large scale, yeah? your thoughts?