Dvorak on Google and Wikipedia

cryptoluddite writes "PC Magazine has an article by John C. Dvorak expanding on the community discussion of Google's offer for free web hosting of Wikipedia. Those against the deal point out that Google may be planning to co-opt the encyclopedia as Googlepedia (by restricting access to the complete database). In a revealing speech given by the Google founders, Larry Page says he would 'like to see a model where you can buy into the world's content. Let's say you pay $20 per month.' Should public domain information be free?" It's a pretty scary scenario painted, but one can hardly take a speech from 2001 as serious evidence these days. Update: 02/16 20:16 GMT by T : This story links inadvertently to the second page of the column; here's a link to the first page.

Comments

First rule about public businesses

[Ckwop]

Trust them with one job and one job only: maximising profits for their shareholders.

I'm sorry google but you lost favour with me when you sold out. Your now a money grabbing company like any other. Keep your damn hands of wikipedia.

Simon.

Re:First rule about public businesses

[John Newman]

Guess what, even Kaiser and Cancer treatment places are there to MAKE MONEY, not for any other purpose.

Many hospitals and "cancer treatment places" are run as not-for-profit organizations, precisely because there are some businesses for which the bottom line should not be maximum profit.

But yes, Google is a public company now, and as such is statutorily required to maximize profits. Page and Brin could be sued for doing anything else.

Free and Clean

[J. T. MacLeod]

Wikipedia should remain free, but it should also be removed from its root of a pornography peddling company.

As much as I love the Wikipedia project (and I do), I can't participate or recommend it in anything other than offhand speech until it is separated from the smut.

I know that it takes many steps to get from Wikipedia to the morally repugnant business, but it's still a large issue for me and for many others.

John Dvorak

[Anonymous Coward]

John Dvorak: Completely wrong on shit since 1980-what?


Seriously, this guy needs to STFU. He was fun to listen to 15 years ago in PC Magazine.

Re:Oh great.

[sbrowning]

Too late, they've already dipped their feet in the evil pool. Their news feeds are selected to favor their own political leanings. No doubt they will apply the same bias to wikipedia if they get their hands on it.

Let's not forget the most important thing here:

[galaxy300]

John C. Dvorak is a schmuck.