Begin forwarded message:
From: UbuWeb <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: June 1, 2005 8:29:02 PM CDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [ubuweb] The End of UbuWeb
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Friends,
Thanks to one and all for the kind comments about UbuWeb. It was a
labor of love for the
past decade and it was truly an experiment in radical distribution of
materials that
thrive on a gift economy. And it worked.
The finances and server complications are too dull to go into here,
but suffice it to
say, that after our university affiliation fell through, it quickly
became clear that it
wasn't salvageable in the Utopian form in which it existed. After
seeing the full
picture, I decided that UbuWeb should go out on a completely clean and
composed note: it
remained true to its vision from day one to the end. Anything else
would have seemed to
be a distasteful compromise.
The University of Pennsylvania will take good care of the site and
archive it fully
intact far into the future. Suffice it to say that it's in the best
hands that it could
possibly be in.
And really, my deepest hope is that UbuWeb will inspire others to
create sites that
surpass UbuWeb. We traffic in a privileged position of the gift
economy, where
intellectual materials travel widely and deeply, free of charge,
available to all
interested parties. UbuWeb is only the most recent incarnation of this
tradition; history
is rife with other examples. But the web remains the perfect place to
realize our ideals
without compromise. May a thousand flowers bloom.
Kenny Goldsmith
UbuWeb
http://ubu.com
