Re: Virtual Library: museums and funding

:>  One day, funding will be an issue of the past -- we will get it; the 
:> question is when and how. I suspect that we need to rally together in a 
:> stronger way than we currently do. The WWWVL needs to show itself in the 
:> global marketplace: we need to standardise a copright, etc.
:> 

True, we need to standardise a copyright. I will ask the W3 Consortium
a proposal of copyright, and will send it here for comments.
Let me remind you that the W3 Consortium is headed by Tim Berners-Lee,
that invented and started both the World-Wide Web Project and
the Virtual Library Project.

Quoting from 
http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/Consortium/Agreement/Technical.html

' Areas of Consortium Activity 
' 
' The goal of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) will be to ensure 
' the evolution
' of the World Wide Web (W3) protocols into a true information 
' infrastructure in
' such a fashion that smooth transitions will be assured both now and 
' in the future.
' 
' Toward this goal, the MIT Consortium team will develop, support, 
' test, disseminate
' W3 protocols and reference implementations of such protocols and be a
' vendor-neutral convenor of the community developing W3 products. In 
' this latter
' role, the team will act as a coordinator for W3 development to ensure maximum
' possible standardization and interoperability. 



:>  If you think about it properly, the WWWVL could be an major player in the
:> Internet in the months and years to come. I maintain the ``Home Pages'' 
:> section, with around four thousand users per day (again growing at about 
:> 1,000 per month). Eventually I can imagine a company stepping up to me 
:> and asking to buy the rights to ``Who's Who on the Internet'' for a large 
:> sum. We, together as the WWWVL, could be worth an extremely large sum if 
:> we seemed more connected than we are.
:> 
:>  I know that many of you are against the commercial side of things,
:> believing that we should provide a free service for ever. But remember
:> that the majority of Internet providers now are commercial and prepared to
:> charge for services. I'm not saying that we should charge directly for the
:> Library, rather that we should consider some way in which we can become
:> something more commercially viable, along the lines of an encylopedia. 
:> The Encyclopedia Britannica is online, incredibly useful, but not free.
:> Perhaps then a major corporation would buy us, with no obvious direct cost
:> to the end-user. Ultimately, we deal in providing information, and once we
:> consider things outside of the limited academic concept, commercial
:> returns should seem worthwhile. 
:> 
:>  In essence, Jonathan raised an important point, and we would be naive to
:> let funding/buying out pass us. 
:> 

I'm in favor of sponsoring: at the bottom of every document one maintains,
I think it is fair to put the logo(s) of the companies or universities 
supporting one's effort.
Once the copyright issue is solved, I suggest the creation of a task force
searching for sponsors for members of the Virtual Library that wish financial
support.

:> Regards,
:> 
:> Kirk Bowe
:> Who's Who on the Internet (``Home Pages'')
:> City University
:> London, England.
:> 
:>   ------------------------------------------------------------------------
:>   Kirk Bowe | BSc Computer Science 2nd Yr | City University London England
:>   Creator of "Who's Who on the Internet" and "CityLive! Web Magazine"
:>   EMAIL: kirk@kba-net.demon.co.uk or kirk@cs.city.ac.uk
:>   "Velim existemes neminem cuiquam cariorem umquam fuisse cuam te mihi"
:>   ------------------------------------------------------------------------
:> 

What is your opinion on the following email ?

> ------- start of forwarded message (RFC 934 encapsulation) -------
> Return-Path: <baller@spheric.spheric.com>
> From: Eric Baller <baller@spheric.spheric.com>
> Subject: increasing your bandwidth
> To: vlib@www0.cern.ch
> Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 21:41:52 -0500 (EST)
> 
> Arthur,
> 
> I want to commend you on the excellent job you have done maintaining
> the virtual library.  You were very wise to leave the maintenance to
> each of the volunteers - there is far too much available on the web
> for any one person to track properly.
> 
> I'm writing you because I have been impressed by the vlib, and would
> like your permission to make your work even more widely available.
> In the same way that mirroring both offloads an ftp site and makes
> its resources more widely available, I would like to essentially
> mirror your subject directory.
> 
> Although many people are using your site as a source for robots,
> I believe that a "moderated" index has more value, and I would rather
> work with you to more widely distribute the virtual library that you
> have created.  Naturally, credit for maintenance and ongoing updates
> will be given, but I would like your permission to copy and publish
> your data.  Although the published work will be sold for a fee, I
> can arrange to make the contents license free - that is to not restrict
> any purchaser from making your index even more widely available - if
> you prefer.
> 
> Please write back with your permission - I think the orderly growth
> of the web depends on it.
> 
> Thank you,
> Eric Baller
> baller@spheric.com
> ------- end -------
> 


Arthur Secret

Received on Wednesday, 15 March 1995 15:41:46 UTC