The Freenet Radical Library (project, discussion)

Freenet is not very often used and remains niche software, in turn not getting the development it could get. This while the Freenet concept is very good which is that of having a system that uses distributed content hosting. So, instead of having a classic server-client model, like how the www works, everyone on Freenet donates some HDD space to the network and shares random and encrypted content so a typical piece of content is not hosted on one spot but on many places. And the more content is viewed, the more it is hosted throughout the network making censorship nearly impossible.

We can utilize this concept for our own needs. So far, we lack a proper leftwing ebook library. That is: A dedicated site that publishes EPUB's, MOBI's and (if the first two preferred options aren't available) PDF's and plain text files. Not to mention that the hosted files are quite often unavailable as censorship mechanisms come into effect.

There are some sites that go in this direction, like Radical eBooks and V£R$O, but they're often limited to the PDF format, which is of course suboptimal in regards to eReaders. Conversion to native eBook formats using software like Calibre is of course an option, but very often the results are limited at best.

Freenet is having a limitation though: Besides being beta software in many regards, it is also pretty slow. But that doesn't matter much in this project, as most eBooks are only a few hundred kb anyway.

So, what is needed?
1. We need to understand the technology involved: Both in running a Freenet node ourselves (not very difficult) and in maintaining a freesite (which is what a website is called on Freenet).
2. We need lots of content, quite possibly create our own content by scanning/photocopying books and running them through OCR software to make them into actual text documents (and not a collected bunch of pictures, which are of course much bigger and are not searchable or fit very well into an eReader).
3. Flowing from the previous two points: We need quite a few volunteers!

Please discuss.

Read this page to get a general understanding of how Freenet operates and what are key concepts of it.

Ok, no response from anyone. Disappointing. Maybe it has to do with basing this project on Freenet. I want to point out that this choice was not set in stone.

Currently I think Osiris (see elsewhere in this group) is actually a better option: You're still able to access it through the "normal" www and, like Freenet, the content of a portal is hosted in a distributed manner. This makes censorship nearly impossible.