Hmm,
this is slightly ironic since Nupedia is part of the GNU-project, and RMS arranged some programmers to assist Nupedia.
Nupedia rules wrt writing articles require the author to be of proven expertise in the field for which he writes. That probably rules me out being a newbie. However we could put together spec for an article on this list.
Sugested spec(just a starting point, please add/modify):
#What is free software: the four freedoms of free software History: #When free was the norm. #The start of non-free. #RMS leaves MIT to found FSF #Why: "The four freedoms of free software" #Copyleft & The GPL #The GNU project #other FSF licences: LesserGPL, FDL #Other free licenses: GPL compatible copyleft, non-copy left free licenses #The growth of freesoftware: cronology of GNU project and other major freesoftware. #The arrival of the Linux kernel, linking Linux to GNU => GNU/Linux #Distributions and commercial involvement in GNU/Linux #Associate organizations of the FSF: FSFE, Savana, FSFchina, FSFindia, #The FSF and the freesoftware movement: relationship, other organizations/major figures not formally associated with FSF.
Then any volunteer can write a draft and post it on Nupedia's non-refereed sibling, Wikkipedia for criticism. Once the Wikkipedia article has been thoroughly polished we could get some senior members of FSF to give it their stamp of aproval and submit it to Nupedia.
It would also be a good idea to ensure accuracy and agreement with the open source article. (Just so long as we convert Open Source'ers to Freesoftware rather than driving them off.) A dificult point will be Eric S Raymond's departure from FSF. I'm not sure either ESR or RMS like talking about that.
Quoting Olivier Berger oberger@april.org:
Hi.
I think that we may watch closely what happens with the Open Source article being written in nupedia at the present time : http://www.nupedia.com/newsystem/ordiscuss_1.phtml?arean=compsci&instr=o...
2
I'm afraid a Free Software article isn't under work :(
Regards,
Nick Hockings
s96121272@op.up.ac.za, s96121272@tuks.co.za, nickh@nupedia.com