DIAMatR - Directory of Infinitely Available Mathematics Resources

Goal

The goal of this project is to create a directory of mathematics resources which have been realeased under an Infinite Availability License or some other appropriately unrestriced terms of use.

What?

Suppose you create an incredible tutorial on "Estimation in the Supermarket". You realize that this could do people a lot of good, so you want to make it available to as many people as possible. Luckily, you live in an age of miracle and wonders, and it is possible to reach an essentially unlimited number of people for almost not cost to them or you. Put it into HTML and dump it on the web somewhere, and people can download it at will. Problem solved.

Actually, there is also another solution--you could also choose to make your work available under a "copyleft" arrangement, whereby everyone is still able to use it freely, but if they make a derived work they are required to release that work under the same "copyleft" arrangement. This is more restrictive than the other case, but in a sense it increases the availability even further--this way, no one could make some incremental improvement to your work, then copyright that and restrict others from using it. The good thing about that is that it gives them incentive to just send their improvements to you and let you add them to the original. Or, you could leave yours as it was, and they could go on with their version, but that version will be just as available to everyone as yours. That way, your work and all works derived therefrom remain available, forever, to anyone. For an example of such a "copyleft" license, see the OPL at www.opencontent.org.

Either way, you have created a mathematics resource which is infinitely available, and wouldn't it be nice if there were a directory listing all such resources? That's the idea of DIAMatR--to further increase availability by making a directory available to people looking for such resources.

Who would that be?

Teachers, homeschoolers, the curious, people who need the knowledge for their job--anyone who needs a math resource. And making things copylefted or copyrightless means that people can look at things in the directory without having to worry whether the author will let them print it out, cache a local copy, etc. And the materials are likely to improve in quality with time, as users realize that the incremental (or dramatic) improvements they make to whatever materials interest them could be of benefit to the wider community, giving them an easy way to "give something back" to a community that gave something valuable to them.

There is a sister project, DIIMatR, that you may find of interest.