[kw-pm] paying for well-formed content

[Daniel R. Allen]

On Tue, 3 Jun 2003, Stewart C. Russell wrote:

> Andrew Kohlsmith wrote:
> >
> > Amen!  RDF and (more generally) raw XML
> > availability should almost be
> > required, not optional, IMO.
>
> we supply XML, it's just that we're perceived as having the audacity to charge for it. What's a guy with commercially valuable content to do? ;-)

This convseration ties neatly into last night's LUG meeting on Docbook,
the XML "application" for computer documentation.

Rick M. (who isn't on this list, but I'm CC'ing this message to) mentioned
the OED, Oxford English Dictionary, which pioneered some of the
complicated markup work that led to XML.  They basically translated 4100
pages of highly structured dictionary into an equally well-structured
electronic format.  They take their data seriously.  The third edition
is rumoured to have the word "Perl" in it, even.

I did a bit of poking around. So now, at www.oed.com, they have a huge
structured data-store, that's supposed to be really pretty to search and
find the history of gazillions of words; but it costs something like
$500US minimum to use it.

The "teaser" at http://www.oed.com/cgi/display/wotd is pretty, but they
have nothing to whet the appetites of programmers or database geeks.

How are the companies to provide useful structured info, and still make
money at it?

I guess I don't really have a point.  But I hope that google's experiment
of providing a public API is wildly successful, so other organizations can
give it a go as well.

-Daniel