Free Encyclopedia of Comput. Chem. ?

From: Didier MATHIEU <mathieu-0at0-ripault.cea.fr>
Subject: Free Encyclopedia of Comput. Chem. ?
Date: Tue, 03 Aug 1999 10:16:05 +0200
Hello everybody,
 addicted to internet and more specially to the CCL for a couple of years
 I enjoy getting free information and software this way. I noted that
 many subscribers use Linux, are looking for or annoucing free
 software... However, a kind of stuff that does not appear to be widely
 available for free are encyclopedias.
 I realize that it may be almost impossible to set up a general-purpose
 encyclopedia this way because of the need to avoid patented material,
 but in a specialized field such as computational chemistry, it might be
 possible unless there are some legal barriers I am unaware of. Therefore
 I wouldn't be surprised to heard about such an encyclopedia. Does
 anybody knows about such a project ?
 Otherwise, I wonder what CCLers think of the idea of developping an
 Encyclopedia of Computational Chemistry on the basis of volunteer
 contributions as for Linux ? To me it seems a priori that a high quality
 might require a "cathedral-style" development with the content
 well-planified in advance, however the wealth of good free softwave
 available suggests the opposite. In addition the rate of advancement of
 the field probably make it hard to design an encyclopedia in the
 standard way (I am considering buying the Encyclopedia of Computational
 Chemistry published by Wiley).
 The main question may be whether many people are ready to write
 contributions or trust such information which didn't go through a
 standard refereing process. According to me it would be conceivable to
 design "trust indexes" calculated from readers's responses and collect
 their comments as done for books on the site of the Amazon.com online
 bookshop.
 In the long-run, such an online encyclopedia should be useful to those
 working in industrial plants only anecdotically involved in the field,
 who are the only computational chemist in their lab and have to get an
 overview of many subfields according to the needs of their colleagues
 and customers, ...like me. Hence it would be a gift of academics to
 industry...-)
 Best regards.
 --
 Didier MATHIEU
 CEA - Le Ripault, BP 16
 37260 Monts (France)
 Tel. 33(0)2.47.34.41.85