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> It is a shot across the bow at the bloggers.
> We knew this would come. I'm glad for it
> because a citation trail is a very good
> start to a web where innovation is recognized
> and good ol' engineering is easier to reward
> commensurately.
Well, crediting your sources is all very good and honourable, but
omitting to do so is hardly new. There is something of a modern
obsession with audit-trails. I don't think Homer added a References
section to the Odyssey, but does that detract from the power of the
stories? Products need salesmen as well as inventors, and billboard
adverts (or newspaper reviews) rarely mention either, but does that make
the products any better or worse? Even in academe, where there is
something of a conceit about priority, success can come from
popularising the work of others, whether credited or not.
> ... there is a lot of idea
> theft going on among the cognoscenti.
> The web is NOT an information space. It is an amplifier.
Are these opposites? The signal-to-noise ratio may sometimes be lower
than one would like, but that's hardly new either.
Some believe that ideas can't be (private) property anyway [*], in which
case they can't be stolen...
Greg
[*] Cf. this recent decision of the Canadian Supreme Court (which
incidentally is important for its implications in copyright law):
http://www.lexum.umontreal.ca/csc-scc/en/rec/html/2004scc013.wpd.html
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