Re: Slightly Off Topic: GPL'ed Encyclopedia ?

[Soren Harward <soren cinternet net>]

Point well taken.  However, an "open information" system is highly
problematic.  With software, "truth" is easy: the program either works or
it doesn't.  With general information, maintianing what is the "truth" is
much more difficult.  The internet is the single biggest information
resource available to man, and look at how much crap and misinformation
there is on it.

This is *so* far off topic for GNOME that I suggest anyone interested
in the thread continue it privately.

--
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On Thu, 12 Nov 1998, Justin Ross wrote:

)
)>your own from scratch.  However, you can't just make up factual
)>information.  The research effort would be enormous, as would the 
)entrophy
)>level.  You'd end up with stuff like supercomplex descriptions of 
)quantum
)>particle physics while the "18th-century British Literature" article
)>forgets to mention Pope's _The Rape of the Lock_.
)
)Yeah, it would be an entirely different animal.  But I don't think 
)that's necessarily bad.  It would be a long term struggle to achieve the 
)kind of breadth of an encyclopedia, but I expect that early on it might 
)achieve a kind of depth better than existing encyclopedia's (deeper, at 
)least, than MS's offering).  Essentially, then, it's a herd-the-cats 
)problem.
)
)Second, the distinction between software and information becomes more 
)and more problematic.  The stability of the book as a form of technology 
)has made us regard it as more or less transparent.  In contrast the new 
)technologies of the text, which have software clinging to them 
)everywhere, seem to be gathering more attention than the content they 
)carry.  I think what I'm getting at here is that we are making the tools 
)free, but soon we'll turn to content, because that's what the tools are 
)for.  And you can transmit a manuscript just as fast as you can transmit 
)source code: it submits to the same kind of economic conditions that are 
)beginning to supplant the proprietary software model.
)
)I'm offended that academia has gotten so involved in the practice of 
)exclusive publishing.  It ends up hampering discourse instead of 
)generating it.  When I teach, I don't want it to be like this.  And so I 
)get a sort of twinkle in my eye when I think that, maybe, text and 
)discourse can begin to change the way that free software has.  I hope 
)it's an unstoppable force.
)
)Justin
)
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