Tim, you're giving away my secrets!
My previous message wasn't arguing against any "earned, open and
optional centralization," but against the idea that such
centralization would be necessary or desirable to accomplish our
goals. Once you put those adjectives "earned, open and optional" in
the mix, it's a different ball game.
I guess I should have put it in Siva Vaidyanathan's terms of protocol
versus control. We need good platforms for sharing data, but we need
to be careful to make those platforms flexible and evolvable. And,
most importantly, not subject to the control of any single entity, no
matter how apparently benevolent.
(on that point, Wikipedia is kept in check because the GFDL makes it
possible for anybody to fork the content as soon as the Wikimedia
Foundation stops delivering value or makes policy decisions that harm
the community.)
--Casey
On May 16, 2007, at 11:11 PM, Tim Spalding wrote:
> I hate being the "right" of you Casey. It makes me itch. But I wonder
> if the right comparandum isn't Google, but Wikipedia. ("A wiki for
> books," as the fella says.) Wikipedia draws from many sources—users
> and sources—and it's remixable, free and forkable, but it's never
> seriously forked. An earned, open and optional
> centralization—Wikipedia, Linux, name servers—has a lot to recommend
> itself.
Casey Bisson
__________________________________________
Information Architect
Plymouth State University
Plymouth, New Hampshire
http://MaisonBisson.com/blog/
ph: 603-535-2256
Received on Thu May 17 2007 - 06:58:04 EDT