On 1/19/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
You're giving several people the impression that you are trying to bag on several corporations.
I'm not even sure what it means "to bag on" a corporation, so I guess I'll take your word on it.
This is not the place for merely bagging on the corporations. It's one of many places where real serious discussions could start on what to do next.
Well, this isn't the place for praising corporations either, then.
It's not praising them to note that they're an integral part of how the Internet's typical user experience works, and how Wikipedia is being used by typical users.
It is praising Google to claim that "Google did a world of good to the Open Content movement".
Google is in no way a part of the open content movement. In fact, much of what they do is directly opposed to the open content movement. APIs that can't be used without agreeing to a highly restrictive terms of service, patents which inhibit others from building upon their innovative approach to search, tons of content all Copyright (c) Google with all rights reserved. They even throw their watermarks and copyright notices on public domain content trying to claim it as their own.
Google runs a search engine that is smart enough to put Wikipedia articles at the top of searches for which a Wikipedia article is one of the most relevant results. Whoop-de-do, that's not doing a world of good to the Open Content movement, that's making a popular search engine so you can sell lots of ads.
Anthony