A Brief History of the Internet: The Bright Side: The Dark Side — John Shaqi
A Brief History of the Internet: The Bright Side: The Dark SideHart, Michael
History
A Brief History of the Internet: The Bright Side: The Dark Side
Hart, Michael
Computer networks -- United States -- History; Internet -- History
Not one. [There is a word for the act of complaining
about something without [literally] lifting a finger]
The entire body of freely available Etexts has been a
product of the "little people."
2. Cost Inflation
When Etexts were first coming it, estimates were sent
around the Internet that it took $10,000 to create an
Etexts, and that therefore it would take $100,000,000
to create the proposed Project Gutenberg Library.
$500,000,000 was supposedly donated to create Etexts,
by one famous foundation, duly reported by the media,
but these Etexts have not found their way into hands,
or minds, of the public, nor will they very soon I am
afraid, though I would love to be put out of business
[so to say] by the act of these institutions' release
of the thousands of Etexts some of them already have,
and that others have been talking about for years.
My response was, has been, and will be, simply to get
the Etexts out there, on time, and with no budget. A
simple proof that the problem does not exist. If the
team of Project Gutenberg volunteers can produce this
number of Etexts and provide it to the entire world's
computerized population, then the zillions of dollars
you hear being donated to the creations of electronic
libraries by various government and private donations
should be used to keep the Information Superhighway a
free and productive place for all, not just for those
1% of computers that have already found a home there.
3. Graphics and Markup versus Plain Vanilla ASCII
The one thing you will see in common with ALL of such
graphics and markup proposals is LIMITED DISTRIBUTION
as a way of life. The purpose of each one of these is
and always has been to keep knowledge in the hands of
the few and away from the minds of the many.
I predict that in the not-too-distant-future that all
materials will either be circulating on the Internet,
or that they will be jealously guarded by owners whom
I described with the Seven Deadly Sins.
If there is ever such a thing as the "Tri-corder," of
Star Trek fame, I am sure there simultaneously has to
be developed a "safe" in which those who don't want a
whole population to have what they have will "lock" a
valuable object to ensure its uniqueness; the concept
of which I am speaking is illustrated by this story:
"A butler announces a delivery, by very distinguished
members of a very famous auction house. The master--
for he IS master--beckons him to his study desk where
the butler deposits his silver tray, containing a big
triangular stamp, then turns to go.
What some of these projects with tens of millions for
their "Electronic Libraries" are doing to ensure this
is for THEM and not for everyone is to prepare Etexts
in a manner in which no normal person would either be
willing or able to read them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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