[Search-l] Simpy Chichimichi - "Wikia Search - Not Happening"

[Seth Finkelstein]

> Janet Hawtin
> On wikia search at the Adelaide talk JW did mention the wikia search
> so I expect that it will be happening when the dust settles.

	Janet, just to clarify, that last message was entirely by
Otis Gospodnetic. I merely posted it here because I came across it in 
my readings and thought it was interesting and worth sending to the list.

	My own personal view, as a professional programmer, is that
it's no big deal for a project to start out with huge fanfare, and
then slip, slip, slip, maybe into oblivion. I've seen it happen many a
time in my working life. Nobody has gotten hurt here, and that's more
than can be said for much vaporware. So I'm not criticizing JW on this
point myself. But I think it's reasonable to forward some of the
varied articles about the project, even if negative.

	Again, if you want to know what I think (and JW might not like
his, sigh, I recently got flamed by him over certain strategic analysis
on a different topic), the project will happen if/when venture
capitalists and/or "second-tier" search companies are convinced to put
up the appropriate funding. It takes time to get that sort of sign-off
by corporate executives. Here's where he talked about that:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19325896.300-interview-knowledge-to-the-people.html

"Since news of this venture broke (see search.wikia.com) we have been
contacted by more than one second-tier company that develops search
engines. They recognize that acting individually they are going to
have a hard time catching up with Google, because Google has so much
money and so many great people. ...  So it makes sense for second-tier
search companies who are falling behind Google to contribute to a free
search software project that will make us equal to Google in terms of
search quality."

	To be clear, I'm *for* that, in a general sense. One should be
careful about any programmers-work-for-nothing part. But the overall
concept of a consortium of Google's competitors funding an open search
project seems to me to be a good idea. But again, the difficulty of
negotiating such an agreement goes up dramatically with the number of
investors involved.

-- 
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  http://sethf.com/
Infothought blog - http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/
Interview: http://sethf.com/essays/major/greplaw-interview.php