- From: William F. Hammond <hammond@csc.albany.edu>
- Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 11:00:29 -0400 (EDT)
- To: 100320.1303@CompuServe.COM
- Cc: www-html@w3.org
: ISO 10646 contains a large collection of printing characters. Here are
: some dashes and spaces (from Unicode - ISO does not make their texts
: available):
Hellooooo
There is a conflict between the purpose of setting standards and the
practice of price-rationing the distribution of standard-setting
information.
Standards that are not net-accessible are fading.
Organizations that want to recover costs but also want to have
influence should consider two-tiered publication:
Tier 1: Free without restriction on redistribution as layered hypertext.
This can only be printed as an ugly jumbled mess.
(And many who choose to print will do so with
"print-screen".) If there is a limit on
redistribution in this form and if the material
does have influence, then network requests pointed
at a small number of servers are likely to be a
problem. Original serving sites should offer
"tarballs".
Tier 2: Nicely printed and bound in traditional form for a price.
Of course, both tiers flow automatically from an "original" in a
suitable markup. (I cannot suggest where one looks for that setup.)
It is possible for such a strategy to result in increased sales of the
printed form. With a sufficient level of influence and interest, the
price can be set within a reasonable proximity of marginal cost.
-- Bill
Received on Friday, 12 July 1996 11:07:06 UTC