funding our work

> I was going to ignore this - "drag others" isn't what this debate
> is about - but I think it might be useful to know, how *do* you
> all manage your VLs? Do you use academic or government facilities,
Hello toghether,
I was the orginator of this "drag others". Mainly I'm concerned with
the matters of freedom and independence of the Virtual Library
(and of the Web at all). This might be of no relevance for some
subject areas, for others it is. I'm maintaining the religion
subject and sometimes the religious wars of the past find their
continuation in my mailbox. Because of this I'm rather sensitive
to the prospect that there might come up somebody and tells me do
this and do that. I started to care for this subject area because
certain aspects of it are terrible interesting to me. No other
intentions are possible. With this subject I can not even have the
hope to establish myself or make contacts for a future professional
career. The privilege I have is that I can use the equipment of my
university for now, but not for ever. I do the maintaining in my
spare time, like now on the weekend.
Personaly I like the idea of seeking funding for the vlib as a whole
to enable maintainers on slow or expensive links to locate their
pages on a server and maintain it from their home. I dislike any idea
of centralisation in general. For the vlib to be real virtual it should
be dispersed over the planet, it should be open, it should be free
for everybody and one day it should really reflect the diversity of
mankind. This does not contradict that it is one body of information.
I don't like the idea that one company will buy the vlib, lets say to
give exlusive access to it for members of a club or something like that.
Whether they charge for it or not.
 
Greetings
Armin Mueller

Received on Sunday, 19 March 1995 04:51:47 UTC