[cc-community] Public domain search engines - is Appropedia's the only one?
Chris Watkins
chriswaterguy at appropedia.org
Fri Feb 8 19:48:09 EST 2008
(note: I'll use APDS to refer to Appropedia's Public Domain Search)
On Feb 9, 2008 3:40 AM, Terry Hancock <hancock at anansispaceworks.com> wrote:
>
> Chris Watkins wrote:
> > Is anyone aware of any public domain search engines? I couldn't find one, so
> > I created one, at
> > http://www.appropedia.org/Appropedia%27s_Public_Domain_Search - still in
> > early stages, but already giving worthwhile results.
>
> Extremely useful idea if it can deliver.
It already delivers what it claims, i.e. mostly PD results. The
proportion will improve, especially in the coming week when I plan to
do a lot of work on it. And it finds a lot of useful stuff, which I've
just started to use for adding to Appropedia - see
http://www.appropedia.org/Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Pd_source for
pages for pages added.
I'd like it to deliver strictly PD results, but I suspect a
fundamental improvement in this won't be possible until CC0 becomes
widespread.
> How exactly are you determining that material is public domain? PD is
> kind of a default state into which material eventually falls
> (unfortunately now after a ridiculously long time). There are also
> materials which are "assigned" to the PD and US government materials
> which are PD by statute.
>
> So are you only finding PD-assigned materials, or what?
There's link at the bottom of the search page, to
http://www.appropedia.org/APDS_-_How_the_search_is_built which
explains this. In a nutshell, APDS attempts to search as many PD sites
as possible, while excluding non-PD sites.
I've started by working on US federal government content, as my strong
impression is that this is by far the largest proportion of PD content
available. However, there is no comprehensive list that I could find
of US federal sites. So APDS searches .gov, and then uses an exclusion
list (which has taken a lot of long days to put together) of state and
local government sites, and federal sites with a lot of copyrighted
3rd party info. (The alternative was to find all fed gov sites and
search them, but I was pretty sure that any list I found would end up
excluding an enormous number of smaller fed sites.)
Apart from that, I just manually identify PD sites (and haven't done
much on this yet).
But having just found that gutenberg.org lists a lot of their work as
copyrighted, I'm going to have to work out a filter for that site, but
when I've tried, I get almost no hits - even Shakespeare is listed as
copyrighted, so perhaps there just isn't much content there flagged as
PD. A topic for another thread, if someone has some thoughts on that.
> I guess this would work great if CC0 started being widely implemented,
> though.
That will change everything, but I'm expecting there'll likely be at
least couple of years till that happens, and I want a PD search now.
But I plan to add CC0 results soon, so the search results will improve
as CC0 usage expands.
> > I have plans to do a lot of work to improve it, including doing something
> > with cc tools/metadata. However, I thought I'd check first whether there
> > were any other active projects that I'd missed.
>
> One thing I think needs improvement is your differentiation on the front
> page. You have to be *extremely* clear about these issues because there
> is so much fuzziness and misinformation about the actual licensing state
> of many materials out there. You have to establish your credibility with
> knowledgeable users by demonstrating that you properly know how to use
> and distinguish these terms and you need to induct newcomers to the
> taxonomy of licensing-regimes (and where your site fits in).
>
> You refer to at least four different licensing regimes: Public Domain,
> CC-Attribution, CC-NC-Attribution, and "GNU FDL" (notably overlooking
> CC-Attribution-ShareAlike). Because you throw these terms around with a
> poorly-defined term "Open Content" (well, at least your usage doesn't
> agree with mine, as I don't count "NC" work as "Open Content"), the
> result is a bit disorienting.
That would indeed be confusing, but nowhere are these referred to on
the APDS page. Could you please clarify exactly where you're getting
confused?
Perhaps I need to clarify that APDS is one service offered by
Appropedia - it's not the main purpose of Appropedia (which is a wiki
for sustainability, international development and appropriate
technology info).
The Open content page does describe different kinds of content, and
mentions the issue of NC content and where it can't be used, but I'll
reword it. Note that it's a wiki, and it's a stub page, and I'm happy
if anyone wants to improve it.
> I think if you genuinely are interested solely in *Public Domain* work,
> you need to clearly position yourself in the spectrum -- distinguishing
> yourself from "Free" or "Semi-Free" sites. For example, you say at one
> point that GNU FDL work is "compatible" with your site. What does that
> mean? Also you list this as the license for the site. What does that
> mean? Perhaps that the site content itself is GNU FDL, but the indexed
> material is solely Public Domain?
Your last sentence is correct. Appropedia uses the GNU FDL license.
APDS is a service provided by Appropedia which searches for PD
content.
I created the search to find content for the wiki. I realized that
there's a lot of good PD content out there, and that it would be a lot
easier to use that rather than going through the process of asking
people for permission to use their content.
As there is such an enormous quantity of US fed content, this is a
good point to start from when looking for open content. A GFDL search
would be of limited value to us at Appropedia as we're not trying to
duplicating Wikipedia's content, but it's something to think about.
The CC searches are fantastic - but we're eagerly waiting for the GFDL
and the relevant CC license (I assume CC-by-sa) to become compatible,
and allow us to move over.
> I mean I *think* I understand what you're trying to do here, but a
> casual reading of the front page doesn't, IMHO, convey it concisely.
>
> Are you in fact clear on the taxonomy of licensing states? I.e.:
>
> "Public Domain" = Not under copyright
> "CC0" = Possibly copyrighted, but unrestricted"
> "Attribution" = Licensed with only attribution requirements
> "Attribution+Copyleft" = Attribution and retention of license
>
> "...Non-Commercial..." = Usage-restricted material
>
> And assuming you are, where are you drawing the line for indexable
> material and/or site content? (Right after CC0, for indexing and after
> Attribution+Copyleft for site content?)
APDS is for PD content or equivalent, only. I'm not savvy to all the
subtleties, but if it's unrestricted, that sounds like it's
practically the same as PD. So, I assume that will mean CC0, plus
content with a CC PD dedication, plus suitable sites (e.g. any content
created by a US federal government official) which don't yet use any
such mark.
I'd like to make an "Open content" search, including PD, anything
close-as-heck to PD, CC and GFDL, but excluding NC licenses). Later
this year, probably.
(btw, I've heard a different definition of CC0, that it's for work
that is is *already* in the PD - again, that's an issue for a separate
thread.)
> Then I think you should write a statement of purpose or vision statement
> that clearly and concisely establishes where you want to be in this
> framework and make that your front page. (Why, for example, do we need
> you, if we have Wikisource and Project Gutenberg? What's the difference
> between this and CC-enabled search engines, etc.)
Great idea. I'm focused on the mechanics of the search for now, but
will write something on this soon and put it on the ADPS page.
Cheers,
Chris
> Assuming your goal is what I think it is, and you can clarify that
> introductory page, I'd anticipate you'll get some interest in helping to
> improve the site overall.
>
> Cheers,
> Terry
>
> --
> Terry Hancock (hancock at AnansiSpaceworks.com)
> Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com
>
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--
Chris Watkins (a.k.a. Chriswaterguy)
Founding admin at Appropedia.org, the wiki of:
- International development
- Anti-poverty strategies
- Sustainability
- Appropriate technology
- Collaboration for practical solutions
Founding director, Appropedia Foundation, 501(c)(3)
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