Re: Xanadu

> I love Ted Nelson but what's the stance of Xanadu toward what's
> happening on the Web?  Things are exploding without people waiting for
> mechanisms that allow them to be compensated for their "content" down to
> the last second or tenth of a cent.  In fact most probably don't feel
> the need to be paid for their content.  Those that do usually have the
> resources to create formal mechanisms, like free teasers and a place to
> humbly submit your encrypted VISA number when you're ready.

> So why not declare victory and join the party?

Because the charging mechanism is only a part of the Xanadu ideals.  There
are other techincal advances (bivisible and bifollowable links, proper
multimedia transclusions, a working scalable distributed file system, etc.)
that are still not widely implemented.

Also, the Xanadu business model is principally designed to address the
problems of online copyright enforcement and (becoming more and more
significant) rights clearance.  Additionally, as serious artists start to
make use of the Net they will want to be paid for their work - there will
always be free material, but people who create for a living can't afford
to give their labour away.  If we want to see quality on the net, charging
will have to be feasible, reliable and simple.  Hence the panoply of
proposals currently being floated.  And I'm not completely happy with any
of them.

Nonetheless, there's plenty to celebrate - clearly some of the Xanadu ideas
that Ted has been preaching at the top of his lungs these long years are
are starting to make their presence well and truly felt!

Share and enjoy,
		*** AVATAR ***
-- 
Andrew Pam                                      avatar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Manager, Serious Cybernetics                    avatar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Coordinator, Xanadu Australia                   <http://www.aus.xanadu.com/>
P.O. Box 409, Canterbury VIC 3126 Australia     gopher gopher.aus.xanadu.com