[okfn-discuss] Proposed project on Milton

Fri Feb 29 14:53:11 UTC 2008

Hi Iain!

Iain Emsley wrote:
> Apologies for the slightly random email whilst I was trying to  
> unsubscribe my Yahoo account.

No problem ;-)

> I'd like to propose a project using similar tools to the Open  
> Shakespeare project but on Milton (as it is his 400th borthday on  
> December 9th).

This is a fantastic idea!

We'd certainly support such a project. If you are looking for a home in 
the first instance, you're welcome to use our free KnowledgeForge 
service, where Open Shakespeare currently resides:

   http://knowledgeforge.net/
   http://knowledgeforge.net/project/shakespeare/

I've just created a project for a repository of his texts here, with a 
subversion repository here:

   http://knowledgeforge.net/project/milton/
   http://knowledgeforge.net/project/milton/services/svn/

Would it be worth grabbing openmilton.net or similar?

[snip]
> However where I would like to go with this is to try and develop some  
> tools to allow users to track linguistic and literary changes with a  
> wider range of open texts from Project Gutenberg (though elsewhere if  
> they can be sourced openly), so for example you might want to track  
> political expression from Hobbes to Paine, or to track the changing  
> meaning of words or sound shifts in Early Modern English.
> 
> I'm curious as to how you can open up literature (something a  
> colleague and I were discussing in the corridor) and language and use  
> the Open Data and the Internet to do this.
> 
> Would this be of interest at all?

Categorically yes!

Its worth noting that the Project Gutenberg license is not fully 'open' 
(as in opendefinition.org), but that if you strip out Project 
Gutenberg's header/footer and any other references - the resulting text 
is open [1].

I suppose the first step would be to gather together a complete and 
fully open set of Milton's works to start tinkering around with:

     http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/m#a17

I've been thinking a lot about tools you could create for public domain 
texts over the last little while. (Particularly in relation to 
philosophical texts.)

It would be fun to draft a wish-list of features - for doing the kinds 
of thing you describe, and for scholarly purposes. For example, for 
linking together proper names across different texts, for marking up 
versions of the texts with page numbers in different editions, and so on.

Regards,

Jonathan

[1] See http://opendefinition.org/licenses

<quote>Used on Gutenberg's ebooks of public domain texts. It is non-open 
because it restricts commercial use. Note that the license only applies 
if you continue to use the Gutenberg name - if you remove the licensing 
information and any reference to Project Gutenberg then the resulting 
text is open.</quote>