Just as an aside, it's high time there was a serious effort at producing a decent open source search. Personally, I think a distributed network with anonymizing services makes the most sense. I know there are projects in existence already, but more people will have to become aware of them. Some Open Source search projects are:
Seriously, did you know...(from wikipedia)
"Under FISA, any agency may require a common carrier, landlord, custodian, or other person provide them with all information, facilities, or technical assistance necessary to accomplish ongoing electronic surveillance. They must also protect the secrecy of and cause as little disruption to the ongoing surveillance effort as possible."
"A common carrier is an organization that transports persons or goods, and offers its services to the general public. In contrast, private carriers do not offer a service to the public, and provide transport on an irregular or ad-hoc basis. Common carriers typically transport persons or goods according to defined routes and schedules. Airlines, railroads, bus lines, cruise ships and freight companies may be common carriers."
So, if the Goog was instructed to provide info, they wouldn't be telling us.
nowhere in the said "article" is it clear what "support" is supposed to mean, ( a pat on the back, a blue ribbon perhaps?) so I'll go ahead and stand by my original post, which states any organization that is pulling in 50 mill usd per year, due in large part to the continued support of its unpaid volunteers, damn well better start thinking about paying those top contributors salaries, because if they don't, there is obviously a market out there that will.
If volunteers are giving so much to the project, and they have 50 million usd in revenue every year, then some of that money should be going to these volunteers that are contributing so much. 50 million is a lot of money. As it stands, it just seems like total exploitation to me. Where is the indignation? I mean, it's one thing to contribute your services to a project that doesn't make any money, it's another thing to work for free for a very profitable entity. These guys need to spread that money around some more in the form of a reward system.
I have a suggestion that would save lot's of bandwidth for the Wikipedia Project. I'm usually primarily interested in their technical articles and wikibooks. I'd be willing to subscribe to a service that sent me new dvd's that mirrored said content, rather than aiming my browser at their site everytime. I'm really kind of surprised this hasn't been done already by someone. They have some really good graphics for some of their technical articles, but I know that those graphics really cost.
The other really good idea I saw floated in the discussion above was a P2P model that mirrored the site. That idea sounds very interesting, but I doubt the Wiki admins would be to happy with that idea, given that many of them seem to me to be control freaks.
This also sounds like a ploy to introduce ads. I feel that this would be a real betrayal of trust on the Wiki admins' part, because contributors had previously been promised that commercialization and ads would not be allowed. If Adsense is involved, it also raises privacy concerns.
They bow down to different corporate masters occasionally, but their masters are corporations none-the-less. Spare me the rant about how the Dems care for "social issues" more than Repubs, they both want to see our jobs outsourced and our information DRM'd. And no, I'm not a Libertarian either, but those fools are starting to make more sense all the time.
What needs to happen is we need a mesh network for the people, and by the people, but of course the FCC would never allow such a thing to occur, because that would give the terrists a way to communicate safely. Business as usual, maybe some other country will get it right....
There is just no reason to introduce the real or percieved impartiality of corporations, or for that matter, of non-profit "thinktanks" with their own agenda into the Wikipedia mix. There is already enough astroturfing and paid PR content as it is. Someone mentioned NPR and PBS as being good models. Pfftt, PBS news is more conservative now than a lot of for-profit, mainstream media sources. Advertisements are fundamentally corrupt, their aim has always been to bring profits to the corporations that they represent. Truth has no value for advertisers, and therefore, Wikipedia should have no ads, as it is a medium that purports to be trying to be truthful and impartial. Keep ads off of Wikipedia!
The Japanese are known for their ability to copy an idea and then "make it better", in their own unique style (e.g. the VCR, automobile, etc.). Let's hope they can break away from that paradigm when it comes to patent law. From the sound of this article though, it looks like that might give the U.S. a run for it's money in regards to IP fascism. *sigh*
Linux is still not ready for Joe User. What I really think needs to happen is that there needs to be a "no-brainer" distro bundled with specific, compatible, low-end hardware. Optionally, you could purchase all the common, user-expected peripherals like a dvd-player, camera, etc. And make sure that they are assured to work on your hardware - no configuring required. Linux could be easier than Windoze, some installs are easier already! Make it cute and fuzzy and absolutely unintimidating for Joe. If you could walk into a Best Buy, or Frys, and get assurance that things would just work with this "Penguin Box" with a point and a click, the Penguin could really take off. Have it all displayed together in the same general area with an info kiosk or something. But, it's gotta be easy! Hell, I'd buy one just to not have to fsck around with configuration hassles. I'm learning how to program and really don't want to waste time on some configuration/imcompatibility issue when I could be coding. I mean, I still use Linux primarily, but "it just works!" is a heady thing, even for the technically savvy.
Just wish there was more activity in thr FOSS community in regards to AI and/or a search engine (distributed) - perhaps the two combined.
Just some musings....
Russ Nelson wrote: "In short, the two organizations are growing closer together in our positions."
Gee, I'm sure the FSF friendlies will be so much more willing to work with you now that they know what you really think of them - that is, that they've been drinking the "kook-aid" as passed out by their leader. Is that made with the same stuff RMS has been filling the pool with?
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.majestic12.co.uk/projects/dsearch//
http://www.aspseek.org/about.html//
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ebiness//
http://www.grub.org/html/documents.php//
http://lucene.apache.org/nutch/bot.html//
I really want to see one of these projects take off, I'd tap a vein at the local plasma center to donate funds :>
Seriously, did you know...(from wikipedia) "Under FISA, any agency may require a common carrier, landlord, custodian, or other person provide them with all information, facilities, or technical assistance necessary to accomplish ongoing electronic surveillance. They must also protect the secrecy of and cause as little disruption to the ongoing surveillance effort as possible." "A common carrier is an organization that transports persons or goods, and offers its services to the general public. In contrast, private carriers do not offer a service to the public, and provide transport on an irregular or ad-hoc basis. Common carriers typically transport persons or goods according to defined routes and schedules. Airlines, railroads, bus lines, cruise ships and freight companies may be common carriers." So, if the Goog was instructed to provide info, they wouldn't be telling us.
http://www.majestic12.co.uk/
nowhere in the said "article" is it clear what "support" is supposed to mean, ( a pat on the back, a blue ribbon perhaps?) so I'll go ahead and stand by my original post, which states any organization that is pulling in 50 mill usd per year, due in large part to the continued support of its unpaid volunteers, damn well better start thinking about paying those top contributors salaries, because if they don't, there is obviously a market out there that will.
If volunteers are giving so much to the project, and they have 50 million usd in revenue every year, then some of that money should be going to these volunteers that are contributing so much. 50 million is a lot of money. As it stands, it just seems like total exploitation to me. Where is the indignation? I mean, it's one thing to contribute your services to a project that doesn't make any money, it's another thing to work for free for a very profitable entity. These guys need to spread that money around some more in the form of a reward system.
I have a suggestion that would save lot's of bandwidth for the Wikipedia Project. I'm usually primarily interested in their technical articles and wikibooks. I'd be willing to subscribe to a service that sent me new dvd's that mirrored said content, rather than aiming my browser at their site everytime. I'm really kind of surprised this hasn't been done already by someone. They have some really good graphics for some of their technical articles, but I know that those graphics really cost.
The other really good idea I saw floated in the discussion above was a P2P model that mirrored the site. That idea sounds very interesting, but I doubt the Wiki admins would be to happy with that idea, given that many of them seem to me to be control freaks.
This also sounds like a ploy to introduce ads. I feel that this would be a real betrayal of trust on the Wiki admins' part, because contributors had previously been promised that commercialization and ads would not be allowed. If Adsense is involved, it also raises privacy concerns.
They bow down to different corporate masters occasionally, but their masters are corporations none-the-less. Spare me the rant about how the Dems care for "social issues" more than Repubs, they both want to see our jobs outsourced and our information DRM'd. And no, I'm not a Libertarian either, but those fools are starting to make more sense all the time.
What needs to happen is we need a mesh network for the people, and by the people, but of course the FCC would never allow such a thing to occur, because that would give the terrists a way to communicate safely. Business as usual, maybe some other country will get it right....
There is just no reason to introduce the real or percieved impartiality of corporations, or for that matter, of non-profit "thinktanks" with their own agenda into the Wikipedia mix. There is already enough astroturfing and paid PR content as it is. Someone mentioned NPR and PBS as being good models. Pfftt, PBS news is more conservative now than a lot of for-profit, mainstream media sources. Advertisements are fundamentally corrupt, their aim has always been to bring profits to the corporations that they represent. Truth has no value for advertisers, and therefore, Wikipedia should have no ads, as it is a medium that purports to be trying to be truthful and impartial. Keep ads off of Wikipedia!
The Japanese are known for their ability to copy an idea and then "make it better", in their own unique style (e.g. the VCR, automobile, etc.). Let's hope they can break away from that paradigm when it comes to patent law. From the sound of this article though, it looks like that might give the U.S. a run for it's money in regards to IP fascism. *sigh*
Linux is still not ready for Joe User. What I really think needs to happen is that there needs to be a "no-brainer" distro bundled with specific, compatible, low-end hardware. Optionally, you could purchase all the common, user-expected peripherals like a dvd-player, camera, etc. And make sure that they are assured to work on your hardware - no configuring required. Linux could be easier than Windoze, some installs are easier already! Make it cute and fuzzy and absolutely unintimidating for Joe. If you could walk into a Best Buy, or Frys, and get assurance that things would just work with this "Penguin Box" with a point and a click, the Penguin could really take off. Have it all displayed together in the same general area with an info kiosk or something. But, it's gotta be easy! Hell, I'd buy one just to not have to fsck around with configuration hassles. I'm learning how to program and really don't want to waste time on some configuration/imcompatibility issue when I could be coding. I mean, I still use Linux primarily, but "it just works!" is a heady thing, even for the technically savvy.
Just wish there was more activity in thr FOSS community in regards to AI and/or a search engine (distributed) - perhaps the two combined. Just some musings....
Gee, I'm sure the FSF friendlies will be so much more willing to work with you now that they know what you really think of them - that is, that they've been drinking the "kook-aid" as passed out by their leader. Is that made with the same stuff RMS has been filling the pool with?