In October of 2000, web-savvy math students lost a critical education tool. MathWorld, an online encyclopedia of mathematics, vanished from the web leaving students, educators, and mathematicians with only a notice that legal problems had caused the shutdown.

MathWorld was an early example of useful web sites for education. Eric Weisstein, the author, originally started it as “Eric’s Treasure Trove of Mathematics.” He spent years collecting and writing entries for what would eventually become a highly regarded reference encyclopedia. As the site became increasingly popular, he struck a deal with CRC Press to publish a print version of his work.

Weisstein had accepted a position at Wolfram Research, and the company offered to help enhance MathWorld and provide hosting for the site. Meanwhile, conflicts with CRC Press began to surface. They wanted to disable portions of MathWorld in order to promote sales of the print version. CRC Press eventually used their contract with Weisstein to claim rights over large portions of his work.

A replacement emerges

As the MathWorld lawsuit dragged on, several students at Virginia Tech and others from IRC math channels launched PlanetMath, a web site to replace the type of resource Weisstein had created. From the outset they aimed to create a collaborative, community-driven site and chose the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) to cover the articles and contributions. The GFDL allows anyone to freely redistribute PlanetMath articles.

A lawsuit shut down MathWorld

“We were all in an essentially defensive mood at the time, after what happened with MathWorld,” Aaron Krowne, a principal of the project said. “We wanted to ensure that no third party could come along and ’steal’ the PlanetMath content,” he continues. The GFDL allowed them to do that and guaranteed to contributors that the PlanetMath staff would not unfairly profit from their work. The license allows the authors to retain rights to their own contributions.

Interestingly, there are plans to create a print version of PlanetMath as well. The GFDL ensures PlanetMath will not encounter the problems MathWorld did.

Krowne was heavily influenced by Yochai Benkler’s paper, “Coase’s Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the Firm”. Benkler’s thesis challenges economist Ronald Coase’s belief that production is most efficient in firms and markets.

They wanted to disable portions of MathWorld in order to promote sales of the print version

“I realized that the conditions and attributes that make free software so great are actually just a special case of something Benkler calls ‘Commons-based Peer Production’, or CBPP,” Krowne says. He lists PlanetMath along with GNU/Linux and Wikipedia as examples of what CBPP can achieve.

PlanetMath is a collaborative mathematical encyclopedia

Benkler writes, “Removing property and contract as the organizing principles of collaboration substantially reduces transaction costs involved in allowing these large clusters of potential contributors to review and select which resources to work on, for which projects, and with which collaborators.”

Since its inception, more than 7000 users have registered on PlanetMath and the encyclopedia section has grown to nearly 4000 entries. Krowne summarizes the benefits of peer-production, “I think a great amount is gained by blurring the line between producer and consumer of content.”

“I think a great amount is gained by blurring the line between producer and consumer of content”

How much can users produce?

Wikipedia is blurring the lines of production with astounding success. Edited entirely by volunteers, the collaborative online encyclopedia has grown to over one million articles with versions in more than 40 languages.

Founders Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger originally started Nupedia, a traditional encyclopedia with expert authors and strict review standards to ensure article quality. Nupedia was innovative only in that it was published on the web for readers at no charge.

After about a year of work, just twenty-four articles were complete and funding was drying up. During that time, Sanger discovered Wiki technology that allows collaborative document editing of web sites. He implemented it to enhance the production of articles prior to submission into Nupedia’s extensive review process. He named the setup Wikipedia and all articles were placed under the GFDL.

The number of Wikipedia articles each year since 2001

As Nupedia fizzled, the developers turned their focus to Wikipedia. The project quickly drew thousands of contributors eager to write about their areas of expertise. Wikipedia now has more entries and is published in more languages than any encyclopedia ever produced.

Bandwidth is expensive

Wikipedia relies heavily on donations to fund the expensive infrastructure necessary to keep it operating. Three primary costs in creating a project like Wikipedia are development, marketing, and distribution.

Relinquishing exclusive, restrictive ownership invites creative minds to extend the ideas implemented in a given project

Wikipedia and PlanetMath have solved the development and marketing costs by leveraging their unique organizational structure. Contributors are motivated in many ways to help improve the projects: sometimes for recognition, sometimes out of gratitude, sometimes for the challenge, and usually with a commitment to the community they are building. The work gets produced and the proof is visible for all to edit.

Despite the lack of marketing budgets, these projects draw wide interest and are well known on the web. Wikipedia, for example, is now among the top 300 most-visited web sites according to Alexa traffic rankings. Their altruistic and novel nature also generates interest from the press and serves as a no-cost marketing tool.

Product distribution can still be problematic for both projects, as servers and bandwidth invariably require time and money to keep serving pages. Wikipedia and PlanetMath continue to face challenges in maintaining a strong infrastructure. It is a consequence anyone could predict.

Developers and advocates of Free Software, Open Source, and peer-produced projects are often questioned about their profit motives. Critics are reflexively suspicious when they focus on the no-cost aspect. They wonder about quality, support, and longevity.