Free encyclopedia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The concept of a free encyclopedia began with the Interpedia proposal on Usenet in 1993, which outlined an Internet-based online encyclopedia to which anyone could submit content and that would be freely accessible. In 1999, Richard Stallman proposed the GNUPedia, an online encyclopedia which, similar to GNU/Linux, would be a "generic" resource. The concept was very similar to Interpedia, but more in line with Stallman's GNU philosophy. It was not until Nupedia and later Wikipedia that a stable and thriving free encyclopedia project was able to be established on the Internet.

Thus far, there have been no free encyclopedias released as such in print form, though the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica is in the public domain.