Comments on: RIP Project Gutenberg founder Michael Hart

By: Stephanie Wyatt

Stephanie Wyatt — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 03:55:00 +0000

Oh how sad! I was a PG volunteer when I worked on the U of I campus back in the late 90′s/early2000. Mike was SUCH a great guy! We always had so much fun going to football games and throwing out CD’s with ebooks on them during halftime. RIP Michael!

By: Bink Binkerson

Bink Binkerson — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 21:27:00 +0000

It’s not enough, but thank you, Michael Hart for making this crapped up world a better place.

By: Colin Rosenthal

Colin Rosenthal — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 09:39:00 +0000

RIP the man responsible for filling my iPad with great works of literature, poetry and philosophy that I will forever feel guilty about not getting around to reading :-)

By: Tim Pozar

Tim Pozar — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 00:49:00 +0000

Very sorry to hear. I met Michael around 1997 when I was the Director of Operations at Internet Archive. Of course Brewster was talking to him about how IA can help host the project. “Driven” would be an understatement about Michael. You can’t not be infected by his energy when you are around him. He had a vision on that changed access to millions of texts and books around the world. Thank you Michael.

By: Substance McGravitas

Substance McGravitas — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 19:43:00 +0000

Thanks Michael Hart. I should have been smart enough to thank you while you were alive.

By: scruss

scruss — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 19:22:00 +0000

One of Michael’s very endearing quirks (as remembered by someone in the MetaFilter obituary thread) was that he wrote e-mails in paragraphs that were right-justified without adding spaces. We will miss him.

By: Ryan Pratt

Ryan Pratt — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 18:31:00 +0000

Here is the information on mirroring: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Mirroring_How-To

The archive is about 350GB.

By: Kyle Reynolds Conway

Kyle Reynolds Conway — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 17:22:00 +0000

Let’s hope the future of ebooks is more open than closed. Thanks Michael!

By: tristis

tristis — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 17:18:00 +0000

You can download the entire catalog with only a small amount of technical savvy, as explained here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Information_About_Robot_Access_to_our_Pages#Getting_All_EBook_FilesThat page says that in 2004, the (zipped) text library totaled 14.5 GB. It’s probably significantly larger now, but text files take up very little space.They also compile CD and DVD images that probably contain everything you could want from their catalog and that can be downloaded via BitTorrent:
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:The_CD_and_DVD_Project

By: PhosPhorious

PhosPhorious — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 17:12:00 +0000

I’m an adjunct in a philosophy department, and for the past several semesters I have compiled a course-pack for my intro classes using Project Gutenberg. It saves the students a ton of money on textbooks, and all the classic readings are there.

Mr. Hart was a great man who contributed to the life of the mind in a very real and important way. I am very saddened by this news. I owe the man quite a lot.

By: ChicagoD

ChicagoD — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 16:44:00 +0000

Project Gutenberg was a brilliant idea that created a template for a lot that has happened since. Godspeed to this man.

By: TheCrawNotTheCraw

TheCrawNotTheCraw — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 16:33:00 +0000

Rest in peace, and thank you for your contributions.

By: DewiMorgan

DewiMorgan — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 16:33:00 +0000

I hope his brainchild continues to thrive for a long time, that he be immortalized by it.

By: allen

allen — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 16:20:00 +0000

What a loss. It’s people like him that make futurism genuinely exciting. There goes a man that made the world a better place.

By: pKp

pKp — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 16:06:00 +0000

Man, I had no idea who the guy behind Project Gutemberg was. The world is a poorer place without him.

By: Jonathan Badger

Jonathan Badger — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 16:06:00 +0000

One of his favorite speculations was that someday, everyone would be
able to have their own copy of the Project Gutenberg collection or
whatever subset desired. This vision came true, thanks to the advent of
large inexpensive computer disk drives, and to the ubiquity of portable
mobile devices, such as cell phones

Actually, how easy is this to do today? While I certainly have downloaded a few PG books over the years, originally for my Palm Pilot in the late 1990s, and now for my phone and e-reader, is there an easy way to download everything? Just because it would be cool — I’d imagine it would probably only be a few hundred gigs at most.

(Yes, Hart was a true pioneer and it’s sad that he died, I’m not trying to lessen that by asking a practical question)

By: zombiebob

zombiebob — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 15:59:00 +0000

Sad to read a BB obituary for a guy who clearly did some awesome shit for the world, but great to see a man who DID do some awesome shit be honored. What this guy did, slaving in the shadows (sort of), is REAL accomplishment, real work, and I hope he is remembered for it long after Justin Bieber is forgotten.