What if Librivox dies?
I shudder at the thought, but the article in Reason magazine made me pause. It said at one point that if a few of the main contributors (i.e. the Admin team) get burnt out on free audiobooks, Librivox might fall apart. So I'm wondering.. is there any plan for "apostolic succession" in case that happens? Does Librivox, in other words, have a long-term future? We wouldn't it to be like the reign of Alexander the Great, would we? If for some reason, nobody steps up to take over the adminstrative duties, either because of time or the cost of maintaining all that web space, is there any guarantee that all those thousands of hours of work will stay up on the Internet for downloading?
These audiobooks will be on the Internet until The Internet Archive dies. Because they host the files. Now about admins leaving, this may damper the project. But I am fairly certain that there are plenty of people that would take the job. After, the idea is to create a sort of leader hierarchy.
Browse
And even if this project does die, some person will see the LibriVox books from The Internet Archive, and revive the project.
Browse
And even if this project does die, some person will see the LibriVox books from The Internet Archive, and revive the project.
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we have a pretty distributed management system. while some of the people named in the article are pretty important, there are many other standard bearers to keep the project going. we also have very detailed "how-to" documentation, both public (on the wiki) and private, for more password-sensitive stuff, such as cataloging etc.
actually... makes me think, we should strip out the passwords and make that "how to make a librivox book" available to the public - if for no other reason than to let people know how darned complicated the back end management is.
the important thing is to keep the admin squad healthy and active ... so we are constantly adding new faces to the crew. but for every kara and hugh, there is a kri and ductapeguy and thistlechick and librarylady, and a.r.dobbs and gesine and caet and ceastman and cori and earthcalling and ezwa and gesine and gypsygirl and jimmowatt and kristin and Peter Why and raynr and Starlite and Stephan and tis, plus a number of others who have come and gone and who would likely come back to chip in if librivox ever got in trouble (sorry if i missed anyone!).
not to mention all the other keeners out here ... and the process itself is well-defined, and robust, and the project "management" itself very much distributed.
as cori said somewhere or other, the project is too well-built to suffer much with the departure of one or two or three or four key figures. 10 would be difficult, but that's pretty unlikely.
actually... makes me think, we should strip out the passwords and make that "how to make a librivox book" available to the public - if for no other reason than to let people know how darned complicated the back end management is.
the important thing is to keep the admin squad healthy and active ... so we are constantly adding new faces to the crew. but for every kara and hugh, there is a kri and ductapeguy and thistlechick and librarylady, and a.r.dobbs and gesine and caet and ceastman and cori and earthcalling and ezwa and gesine and gypsygirl and jimmowatt and kristin and Peter Why and raynr and Starlite and Stephan and tis, plus a number of others who have come and gone and who would likely come back to chip in if librivox ever got in trouble (sorry if i missed anyone!).
not to mention all the other keeners out here ... and the process itself is well-defined, and robust, and the project "management" itself very much distributed.
as cori said somewhere or other, the project is too well-built to suffer much with the departure of one or two or three or four key figures. 10 would be difficult, but that's pretty unlikely.
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Is there a link to the article? how did I miss it? *curious*
~ Betsie
Multiple projects lead to multiple successes!
Multiple projects lead to multiple successes!
Over here Betsie:thistlechick wrote:Is there a link to the article? how did I miss it? *curious*
http://librivox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8057
<hugs>
"Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable
people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress,
therefore, depends on unreasonable people." George Bernard Shaw
people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress,
therefore, depends on unreasonable people." George Bernard Shaw
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Thank you
~ Betsie
Multiple projects lead to multiple successes!
Multiple projects lead to multiple successes!
I wouldn't worry about it too much If I have anything to do with it, LibriVox will be around for a long long time. I wouldn't be surprised if many of the other people Hugh mentioned would say the same thing. That isn't to mention the incredibly devoted volunteers who aren't in positions of management but contribute a lot to the project (and feel just as passionate).
Yes, if worst comes to worst, then I can be an admen...
Although, that would be a sad day, when I (who cares more about the philosophy behind LibriVox, rather then LibriVox itself) takes charge.
Let's see... Kri, I wan't five solo books done by next week, or your fired... :o
Although, that would be a sad day, when I (who cares more about the philosophy behind LibriVox, rather then LibriVox itself) takes charge.
Let's see... Kri, I wan't five solo books done by next week, or your fired... :o
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I don't think we've much to worry about, even if - heaven forbid - all of the admins left we would still keep it going, if not as strong. thats the beauty of having everything on free spaces, (LV is from what I hear hosted freely, the sound files are hosted freely on archive.org, &c.)
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The one thing that i don't get, is if LibriVox is based on no money, how can we have a domain. Doesn't it cost $9 a year to have one?Editors?
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This is a problem all open source/volunteer projects have to face. From what i see LibriVox is long past the point where important members leaving will bring it down.
I am member of Project Jedi which is an Open Source group for the Delphi programmnig language. The subprojects have changed hands several times now and are still alive. Seven years and seven new versions of Delphi.
I am member of Project Jedi which is an Open Source group for the Delphi programmnig language. The subprojects have changed hands several times now and are still alive. Seven years and seven new versions of Delphi.
Whew! I feel much reassured now. I'm glad it's been given a good deal of thought.
I remember how, in college, I got that part-time job as a circus clown, and how the children would laugh and laugh at me. I vowed, then and there, that I would get revenge.
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-[url=http://www.deepthoughtsbyjackhandey.com/][u]Jack Handey[/u][/url]
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Interesting suggestion... Interesting implications...hugh wrote: actually... makes me think, we should strip out the passwords and make that "how to make a librivox book" available to the public - if for no other reason than to let people know how darned complicated the back end management is.
[url=http://librivox.org/newcatalog/people_public.php?peopleid=254]Alan's LV catalog[/url]
<neil young>hey hey, my my... librivox can never die...</neil young>
Also: I did strip out the passwords some time ago. There are a few password-protected links but I think it's safe to make this public. Feel free to remove this link, anyone, if you feel it's not public-safe :)
http://librivox.org/metadata-coordination-101/
This is not necessarily entirely comprehensive or perfectly up-to-date, but it's close.
Also: I did strip out the passwords some time ago. There are a few password-protected links but I think it's safe to make this public. Feel free to remove this link, anyone, if you feel it's not public-safe :)
http://librivox.org/metadata-coordination-101/
This is not necessarily entirely comprehensive or perfectly up-to-date, but it's close.
Kara
http://kayray.org/
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"Mary wished to say something very sensible into her Zoom H2 Handy Recorder, but knew not how." -- Jane Austen (& Kara)
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"Mary wished to say something very sensible into her Zoom H2 Handy Recorder, but knew not how." -- Jane Austen (& Kara)