Remember Encyclopedia of Life? They've just gone partially, er, live:
http://www.eol.org/
25 reviewed "example" pages showing the level they intend to reach for
every species; about 10,000 partial pages, and a million or so
"minimal species pages" (basically a substub placeholder). They have
funding and backing - it seems pretty likely they'll succeed.
Licensing is a bit of a mismash - some CC-BY, some NC, etc. All
labelled, at a quick glance.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7263134.stm - BBC News story.
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- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk