[Search-l] Licensing thoughts...

Wed May 9 22:45:37 UTC 2007

Please excuse--and/or be entertained and (otherwise) interact with--the
following brief rant and rave(s).  These concepts are simply too fascinating
to not be analyzed and discussed in detail (even if heavily punctuated by
vague bold pronouncements, hints, allegations, conjectures, hyperbole.."
"full of blithe generalization, speculative fancy and jokey hyperbole." ):

On 5/9/07, Seth Finkelstein <sethf at sethf.com> wrote:
>
>         I believe the issue with e.g. Google co-opting the work would
> not so much be in using the code itself. They could easily afford to
> re-implement any end-product using their own code framework, and in
> fact, might have to do that anyway, to plug it into their server-farm
> system.
>

If Google keeps doing stuff like this (i.e. sabotaging and freeloading off
everyone's data -which, let's face it, is more or less their whole business
model anyway), nobody's going to (continue to) trust them --with our
exceedingly personal and private information...especially not over the mid-
to long-term (ie the next year or two, on Internet time!).

Is it not patently obvious that so much information should certainly not be
in the hands of a single individual, let alone a single (profit-motivated)
company?  (Has everyone here seen/read "The Corporation" btw?)

Let's face it (for anyone who's been following Digg or similar feeds
lately), the backlash has already begun...in earnest.  (In fact, I have
really started to notice severe privacy concerns ramping up significantly in
the past week or 2; or at least since they unveiled the new "Web History"
feature -which I think creeps just about everybody out..!)

On so many fronts, they are seeming to quickly evolve into the 'Big Bad
Brother' our mother warned us about, and which everyone was told to fear and
revolt against in the first place (ie, from '1984' to Terminator 2..).

At any rate, Wikia (and similar endeavours) need to provide a solid
alternative to G, on so many levels, on every level if possible:

the entire outfit of Google, the power it represents, needs to be open
sourced, made free, and given to the people-- & not condensed, controlled
and contained in one companies hands.... a company so freely identified with
("not being") evil.  (ie, another case: Anyone who knows the slightest thing
about NLP, or even basic [subconscious and unconscious] psychology knows
that "Don't be evil." is the equivalent to instructing employees to "Be
evil" - since, in many cases, negative injunctions are totally ignored by
the subconscious brain in manifesting our realities..)

We need to (be the) open source google... and if we don't do it, somebody --
everybody -- will eventually make this happen... it is inevitable over any
time span and that's (probably) why this endeavour will succeed.

In the meantime, I wanted to make sure everyone had seen this poll (again
from Read/WriteWeb):
Poll: Search Innovation<http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/poll_search_innovation.php>
Written
by *Richard MacManus <http://www.readwriteweb.com/about_readwriteweb.php>* /
May 07, 2007 / 0
comments<http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/poll_search_innovation.php#comments>

Today we published a detailed analysis of search innovation
techniques<http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_17_search_innovations.php>by
Nitin Karandikar. The post is long, but well worth reading if you are
interested in where search is headed. To complement the post, we're running
a poll asking which of the 4 categories of search innovation that Nitin
identified, do *you* think is key to the next generation of search? The 4
categories are:

   - Query pre-processing, to try to divine the user's intent (e.g.
   Hakia, Collarity, Powerset)
   - Enhancements to the underlying data sources (e.g. Retrevo, Rollyo,
   SearchMash)
   - Improving the underlying search algorithms (e.g. Indeed, Spock,
   Riya)
   - Results visualization and post-processing (e.g. Zilloa, Quintura,
   Trulia)

(The results are accessible via the website:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/poll_search_innovation.php )
& This reminds me of one area where we are not currently focused (and yet
where we presumably need to spend time and energy also: "Results
visualization and post-processing (e.g. Zilloa, Quintura, Trulia)."

Who'd doing 3-D search?  Second Life Search?

NB

PS.  http://dmiracle.com/general/maybe-the-best-google-video-ever/

        Rather, it's a matter of research and development costs, and
> beta-testing. If second-tier search engines end up funding a
> collaboration and personalization initiative, bearing the cost of all
> the wrong turns and failed leads, and then any eventual useful result
> is cream-skimmed by Google, those second-tier search engines won't be
> happy (again, a counter-argument here is the potential for new work to
> favor smaller, more agile companies, not the entrenched player).
>
>         The only way I can think of to handle such an issue is via
> algorithm patents, which is a horrible mess of a topic. Not the least
> because it's very tough to ask people to work for free, but a
> corporation will patent their work and own the patents.
>
> --
> Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  http://sethf.com/
> Infothought blog - http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/
> Interview: http://sethf.com/essays/major/greplaw-interview.php
>

-- 
"Seriously, though, the Web is what we make of it. We have a powerful,
widely-deployed, largely uncontrolled communication network. It's up to us
to decide where to go next."
http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2007-05-07-n78.html
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