Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Ted Nelson Releases Xanadu

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the xanawhat? dept.

ewen writes "Ted Nelson has at last released the source to Xanadu, the extremely rich but never-quite-finished hypertext system. There was a couple of sessions at the O'Reilly Open Source conference yesterday, which Jon Udell has written up, and Dave Winer has posted some background material and thoughts at his website, www.scripting.com. "

1 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. For once history hapenned right. by Cptn+Proton · · Score: 5

    The World Wide Web was created before the deluge of software patenting and after hypertext linking had been invented. The Government, as much as we like to complain about it, had a redundant network in place that could handle hypertext linking ARPANET. Most importantly, in 1990 Tim Berners-Lee was coding the World Wide Web on his NeXT machine at Cern while Ted Nelson was XEROXing literary machines 90.1.

    If any of this had of hapenned out of step, Ted Nelson could have invented the web, patented his software, making his system the standard. Thusly turning your PC into an

    INFERNAL GUMBALL MACHINE OF INFORMATION.

    Think I'm out of bounds???? Students, please turn to page 5/13 of Literary Mchines 90.1:

    ROYALTIES IN THE XANADU PUBLISHING METHOD

    amongst are for those who do not have a copy;

    BYTE ROYALTY;
    a royalty for every byte delivered.

    LINK ROYALTY;
    a royalty for links to other documents.

    if that wasn't enough, how about a

    AUTHORS FUND;
    a royalty for everything delivered to the network. If publisher owns material, he gets rebated. Otherwise TAX would be appropriate description.

    Let me put it visually for you. You know that little counter you get at KINKO's to make copies with?? Imagine that plugged into your PC. And imagine it spinning really fast.

    You thought the RIAA is bad with MP3s?? Well how much music do you listen to as to compared to digging for info on the Web??

    Don't get me wrong. I believe in giving every author, written, electronic, musically or otherwise not only their just due, but their asking price for the work they offer. I don't mind a bit going to a secure server and paying for content, no matter what it is.

    What I do mind is automatic collection, another opportunity for an unjustified tax by a chrony politician, and exorbitant fees for material that I don't need or want to buy.

    As I see it, I don't mind buying the beer, but clean water is everbody's right.

    Thanks to the way history is we have the possibility of new revolutions in things seemingly unrelated as computer chips and medicine, or network redundancy and rainforest conservation, all due to the free flow of information.

    Do not forget that the goal of Xanadu was and is to be an advanced fee collection system. Because history hapenned right, Xanadu almost seems to be a technological afterthought. It is a curiosity to be examined and avoided.