On Tue, 26 Aug 2003 19:27:44 +0100, Kurt Jansson jansson@gmx.net gave utterance to the following:
Every new computer today has a CD-burner, and when 1.0 is ready for distribution every computer will have a DVD-burner. We just have to produce some ISO-images and a handbook in PDF ready for print (and some nice artwork with a "handicraft work guide" (?) for those people who want "paperboard boxes" (?)).
People can make as many copies for their friends as they like. We can distribute the process of sending copies to universities or libraries (like theopencd.org did) among Wikipedians, especially in developing countries. No need to order huge amounts from the "press shop" (?).
BTW, I find all this talk about a paper Wikipedia completely useless (sorry if someone feels offended). It's (much!) too much work, too risky and I don't see a necessity for it. Can't we talk about this again in five or ten years when the DVD-version has stabilised and we are sure that our 50.000 most important articles (and pictures!) have no copyright violation in them? Book-on-demand production might also be a bit cheaper than today.
Just my two WikiCent. Kurt
P.S.: Sorry if I choose some strange word constructions :-)
And in some countries High-speed internet is charged for by data volume transferred. There is no way I'd be downloading any ISO images on an account with 1GB/month "free" and the rest at $0.2 ber MB.