[Search-l] _New Scientist_ - What's your plan for search?

[Seth Finkelstein]

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

Why are you developing a search engine?

Transparency is what I'm really after, the idea that we can go in and
see exactly how web pages are being ranked. We need to have a public
debate about it. We just don't know if there is any dishonesty or
strange incentives in today's algorithms that rank searches. 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.

What's your plan for search?

It's too early for specifics, but one thing that has worked is an
alliance in which people contribute to a free software project. We saw
this succeed with Apache, the open-source webserver. Apache was a tiny
group of volunteers, yet the vast majority of its code has come from
companies who paid people to work on it. It's essentially an
industrial consortium that has been able to fend off Microsoft's
closed-source webserver. 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.

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