Re: Meta Tag - proposal (suggestions ???)

Brian,

On Fri, 17 Nov 1995, Brian Behlendorf wrote:

> On Thu, 16 Nov 1995, Jon Wallis wrote:
> > How about somewhere becoming a "copyright library" for the Web?  Web authors
> > would be required to supply their URL to this site, which would then
> > classify and catalogue the page (for fee).
> > <take tongue out of cheek>
> 
> Actually what I think we will see are publishers which offer "permanent" 
> archives for documents, which serve two purposes:

Although this is off the mark of the original enquiry, it does raise some 
interesting issues very much associated with the WWW that should conern 
all academic and governmental institution - ie permancy of records.  What 
you go on to describe is a library or government archive.
 
> 1) A long-lived URL for future reference, no matter what happens to the 
> admistrative and/or logistical infrastructure surrounding the original 
> author/publisher.
> 
> 2) A legal asset which is validated by its datestamp and submitter 
> (either through a public key or some out-of-band verification) and thus 
> stands as proof of existance for copyright and contractual reasons.

The Internet provides for mirror sites and repositories already - 
something that they are good at when it comes to applications, code 
libraries and the like.  Not so good when it comes to text MIME types.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that the Web has re-introducted in 
this new medium the equivalent of the "chained book".  Notice has much 
text material is designed and written for a particular site making it 
difficult to mirror - even when commercial considerations are not apparent.

The greatest protection of our culture has been libraries and the 
inherent ability to reproduce literature and science.  To tie material to 
a site, to have restrictive copyright laws and not to be able to retrieve 
material of the Web diminishes access to knowledge. 

> Joe english writes:
> > Here's a thought: how about using the Usenet newsgroup hierarchy as a
> > classification scheme?  I.e., "if this Web page were a Usenet article, 
> > in which newsgroup(s) would it belong?" 
> 
> Are you crazy?  Usenet as a model hierarchical classification scheme?  
> bwahaha.  Ack - sorry.  I think a lot more success would had using simple 
> keywords.  To accomplish what you want, though, it would seem like a 
> variant of the <LINK> tag, which is designed for use as a "this document 
> is related to this other document"-ish expression.  Not a direct link, 
> but something user-agents could use in interesting ways....

I agree.  

Rob...

Received on Sunday, 19 November 1995 18:46:58 UTC