The press release naturally doesn't mention it, but I'd guess this was done at least in part because the release of the back issues for free public access became a fait accompli with: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2789709
People have been pressuring them for years to make these open-access, arguing that a non-profit society dedicated to spreading public knowledge ought to at least make the very old historical articles freely available to the general public.
"Make a small cross, of two light strips of cedar; the arms so long, as to reach the four corners of a large thin silk handkerchief, when extended: tie the corners of the handkerchief to the extremities of the cross; so you have the body of a kite..."
Love it.
Also, the first paper by Newton, on his new theory about light and colour. He was still just a "Mr."!
I cannot adequately express how awesome having access to this information is to me. When I was younger I would read one biography from http://www.gap-system.org/~history/ before going to bed. It is nothing short of amazing to be able to get a projection, a snapshot of the workings of the great minds of centuries past. To see them struggle and then brilliantly succeed in explaining concepts that were at the edge of knowledge, that are still non-trivial and have their work remain timeless by continuing to stand head and shoulders above modern treatments of the same subject is remarkable.
I did a search on a bunch of people - Hamilton, Euler, George Green, Bernoulli, Euler, Gauss, Clifford, Boole and more. As is to be expected not every one is there. The most interesting essays my short search found were:
I suppose, but they are only opening articles that are 70 years old. Which means curiosities like Darwin's geology papers are now available, but you still need to pay for anything remotely current. So it's a nice start, but unlikely to effect their bottom line, or make doing science any easier for anyone outside the first world academy.
While I think it's a bit extreme to say they didn't have much choice, it seems to me making data more open is becoming somewhat trendy and this sort of peer pressure may have certainly played a role in the Royal Society's decision. Anyways, the inertia of the status quo shouldn't be underestimated and although things are really not that fair, it will probably take quite a bit of time before we see widespread democratization of data.
Anyone knows why most of the "s" characters have become "f"? eg: beft, fucceeded etc.
Interestingly, nothing else seems to be wrong (at least I didn't spot anything else). And it's not even consistent, eg: crofs (instead of cross, so only one 's' became 'f' here).
OCR software tends to have problem with the ligatures used for "s" in old fonts so often transcribes them as "f".
More expensive OCR software tends to get around this by using probability models to guess the correct word (i.e. "best" is much more likely than "beft"), but I'm guessing they're using some mid-range OCR package.
Seriously? Did you even look at the pages in question?
They are reproductions of the originals, and maintain the original fonts and orthography. This includes the long s, as well as certain ligatures (like ct), and has absolutely nothing to do with their choice of OCR software. In fact, there's no indication that OCR software was used at all.
He didn't say it did - but it is an issue with converting and indexing old documents.
Google's ngrams for instance regularly transcribes them as 'f' so you have to search for both possibilities.
Obligatory Isaac Newton search reveals his biting answer to "some considerations upon his doctrine of light and colors": http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/7/81-91/5084.... (note spelling of "color"). The initial phrase sets the tone: "Sir, I have already told you ..."
Too bad scientific papers have lost this rhetorical flavor.
People have been pressuring them for years to make these open-access, arguing that a non-profit society dedicated to spreading public knowledge ought to at least make the very old historical articles freely available to the general public.