[LINK] Re: Everything .. not just abstracts

[Ivan Trundle]

Hang on a moment - what about the bastions of the Harvard Library et al?
Are they not also 'a default gateway to knowledge' within their domain?
Albeit less universal, but nonetheless 'hegemonic' (as are most
librarians, in this sense).

My view is that the Google deal is A Good Thing (with the usual
reservations about binary thinking causing technology to override
existing activities, when they should at best complement them) if only
because it is *not* an exclusive licence. 

Or perhaps I have misread the press release?

Warmly

iT


>>> "rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au" <rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au> - 17/12/04
6:55 AM >>>
Stephen Loosley wrote:

>Hi Richard, Rachel and all,
>
>Yes, google, already a stunning world resource,
>and soon to make mankind's kernal open source.
>  
>

But angling the question differently: "If a Microsoft hegemony is a bad

thing, why is a Google hegemony a good thing?" In particular, should we

assume that because Google is best at "task 1", it can therefore
deliver 
the best "task 2"?

Google Inc is also extra-good at taking advantage of the "but it's 
Google!" factor - the tendency for people to treat Google with greater

leniency merely because it's Google.

Hence, people already apparently forgive Google the less-savoury
aspects 
of its IPO, nobody gives a bugger about the intrusive rules associated

with its social networking service, an insecure desktop search is okay

"because it's only a beta". Google News makes arbitrary and
inconsistent 
editorial decisions (ask The Inquirer) while shills and dupes talk up 
its objectivity. All's okay, though, "because it's Google".

No company should act as the default gateway to knowledge.

Show me a Google purged of all its mistakes and misbehaviours, and I 
will say the same thing. Show me a technology which beats all comers, 
and I will say the same thing. One company at the heart of knowledge? 
One editorial point of view which, once corrupted, can misdirect the 
discovery (or concealment) of information?

Five years from now is too late to examine whether a company should
have 
exclusive or excessive control over a resource.

RC

>At 06:53 AM 16/12/2004, rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au wrote:
>
>  
>
>>And meanwhile the story has already been sent to various
>>copyright owners' legal teams, and lobbyists prepare to visit
>>parliaments. And we thought the Kazaa case was big...
>>
>>RC
>>
>>r.polanskis at uws.edu.au wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>On Wed, 15 Dec 2004, Stephen Loosley wrote:
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>>><Following> QUOTATION OF THE DAY "Within two decades,
>>>>most of the world's knowledge will be digitized and available, one
>>>>hopes for free reading on the Internet, just as there is free
reading
>>>>in libraries today." MICHAEL KELLER, Stanford U head librarian.
>>>>   
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>That is, apart from instructions on making bombs, precursors for
>>>drug labs, how to torture/murder people or certain abstracts and
>>>treatises regarding sedition and revolution, one would presume....
>>>
>>>...and if you do get to access such material, it will be logged.
>>>
>>>rachel
>>>      
>>>
>--
>
>Happy trails ..
>Stephen Loosley
>Melbourne, Australia
>
>
>
>  
>
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