From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jim Choate To: <9fans@cse.psu.edu> Cc: , Subject: Re: [9fans] ddc In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=X-UNKNOWN Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 08:21:09 -0600 Topicbox-Message-UUID: 17bf61f8-eacb-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 Something somebody sent me...very 9P'ish ;) Somebody on the Cypherpunks list the other day was asking about how to build anonymous search engines and such. 9P being a perfect answer...with a little work. > Let's finish building out the Net's directory > Whether we like it or not Google has become the Microsoft of search =97= in the sense that they now have a monopoly on the business. Who would even= bother to compete at this point? Not even Microsoft. > It's a good thing that Google remains a caring steward of the Internet = superstructure they provide for us all. But it's not good for all of us to = have this much dependency on one company, no matter how nice that company i= s. > Although we regard it that way in a de facto sense, what Google does is= n't Net infrastructure, which is stuff 1) Nobody owns, 2) Everybody can use= , and 3) Anybody can improve. They only meet the second criterion. > So let's take some of the infrastructural burden off Google, and start = thinking about the infrastructural ideals we've ignored while we've watched= Google do such a good job in their absence. > The Net currently conceives its directory no deeper than the top DNS le= vel. Everything to the right of that first / is a free-for-all. All of us h= ave our own schemas, and most of the interesting ones change all the time. = So do the contents at each directory level. What's in each directory should= be knowable and searchable, if the author wants it to be =97 and not knowa= ble or searchable if the author doesn't want it to be. > Think of the Net's complete directory as a dynamic public library that = is deeply part of the Net's infrastructure. > I want a public card catalog that knows the schema of this site, and is= informed (by me, automatically) when I post this item, and that reflects t= he new facts immediately and automatically. Then I want it to automatically= notify search engines like Google, which can then go crawl and archive the= contents for listing in their own privately owned but publicly exposed rea= ders guides. > As for the licensing issues, I think this system needs to respect inten= tions expressed by authors through tools like those recommended by Creative= Commons. > This all seems very do-able to me. > And now I want Craig, who has forgotten more about directory issues tha= n I'll ever know, to come in and tell me how it will or won't work. (I've g= otta draw him back into blogging somehow.) > The rest of you, too. What do you think? http://doc.weblogs.com/2002/11/06#letsFinishBuildingOutTheNetsDirectory -- ____________________________________________________________________ We don't see things as they are, ravage@ssz.com we see them as we are. www.ssz.com jchoate@open-forge.org Anais Nin www.open-forge.org --------------------------------------------------------------------