GNE (originally GNUPedia) was a project to create a free-content

online encyclopedia An online encyclopedia, also called an Internet encyclopedia, is a digital encyclopedia accessible through the Internet. Some examples include pre-World Wide Web services that offered the '' Academic American Encyclopedia'' beginning in 1980, Enc ...

, licensed under the

GNU Free Documentation License The GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL or GFDL) is a copyleft license for free documentation, designed by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for the GNU Project. It is similar to the GNU General Public License, giving readers the rights ...

, under the auspices of the

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985. The organisation supports the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed ...

. The project was proposed by

Richard Stallman Richard Matthew Stallman ( ; born March 16, 1953), also known by his initials, rms, is an American free software movement activist and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in such a manner that its users have the freedom to ...

in December 2000 and officially started in January 2001. It was moderated by Héctor Facundo Arena, an Argentine

programmer A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming. The professional titles Software development, ''software developer'' and Software engineering, ''software engineer' ...

and

GNU GNU ( ) is an extensive collection of free software (394 packages ), which can be used as an operating system or can be used in parts with other operating systems. The use of the completed GNU tools led to the family of operating systems popu ...

activist.

History

Immediately upon its creation, GNUPedia was confronted by confusion with the similar-sounding

Nupedia Nupedia was a multi-language online encyclopedia whose articles were written by volunteer contributors with relevant subject-matter expertise, reviewed by expert editors before publication, and licensed as free content. It was founded by Jimmy ...

project led by

Jimmy Wales Jimmy Donal Wales (born August 7, 1966), also known as Jimbo Wales, is an American List of Internet entrepreneurs, Internet entrepreneur and former Trader (finance), financial trader. He is a Founders of Wikipedia, co-founder of the non-profi ...

and

Larry Sanger Lawrence Mark Sanger (; born July 16, 1968) is an American Internet project developer and philosopher who co-founded Wikipedia along with Jimmy Wales. Sanger coined Wikipedia's name, and provided initial drafts for many of its early guidelines, ...

, and controversy over whether this constituted a

fork In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods either to h ...

of the efforts to produce a free encyclopedia. In addition, Wales already owned the gnupedia.org

domain name In the Internet, a domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services, and more. ...

. The GNUPedia project changed its name to GNE (an abbreviation for "GNE's Not an Encyclopedia", a

recursive acronym A recursive acronym is an acronym that refers to itself, and appears most frequently in computer programming. The term was first used in print in 1979 in Douglas Hofstadter's book '' Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid'', in which Hofs ...

similar to that of the

GNU Project The GNU Project ( ) is a free software, mass collaboration project announced by Richard Stallman on September 27, 1983. Its goal is to give computer users freedom and control in their use of their computers and Computer hardware, computing dev ...

) and switched to a

knowledgebase In computer science, a knowledge base (KB) is a set of sentences, each sentence given in a Knowledge representation and reasoning, knowledge representation language, with Interface (computing), interfaces to tell new sentences and to ask questio ...

. GNE was designed to avoid centralization and editors who enforced quality standards, which they viewed as possibly introducing bias.

Jonathan Zittrain Jonathan L. Zittrain (born December 24, 1969) is an American professor of cyber law, Internet law and the George Bemis Professor of International Law at Harvard Law School. He is also a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, a professor of co ...

described GNE as a "collective blog" more than an encyclopedia. Stallman has since lent his support to Wikipedia. In ''

The Wikipedia Revolution ''The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia'' is a 2009 popular history book by new media researcher and writer Andrew Lih. It covers the period from Wikipedia's founding in early 2001 up to ear ...

'',

Andrew Lih Andrew Lih (; born 1968)Andrew Lih
"

free culture movement The free-culture movement is a social movement that promotes the freedom to distribute and modify the creative works of others in the form of free content, otherwise known as open content. They encourage creators to create such content by using p ...

also proposed his own encyclopedia in 1999 and attempted to launch it in the same year that

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...

took off. Called Gnupedia it coexisted confusingly in the same space as

Bomis Bomis, Inc. (, from ''Bitter Old Men in Suits''; rhyming with "promise") was a dot-com company best known for supporting the creations of free-content online-encyclopedia projects Nupedia and Wikipedia. It was co-founded in 1996 by Jimmy W ...

, a completely separate product. Keeping with tradition Stallman renamed his project GNE – GNE's not an encyclopedia. But in the end Wikipedia's lead and enthusiastic community was already well established and Richard Stallman put the GNE project into inactive status and put his support behind Wikipedia. The

offers the following explanation about GNE:

Just as we were starting a project, GNUpedia, to develop a free encyclopedia, the Nupedia encyclopedia project adopted the GNU Free Documentation License and thus became a free commercial project. So we decided to merge GNUpedia project into Nupedia. Now, the Wikipedia encyclopedia project has adopted the philosophy of Nupedia and taken it even further. We encourage you to visit and contribute to the site.The Free Encyclopedia Project
gnu.org ()

References

External links

GNE website
() {{DEFAULTSORT:Gnupedia Online encyclopedias Internet properties established in 2001 GNU Project 21st-century encyclopedias

History

See also

References

External links