[kw-pm] paying for well-formed content
lloyd carr
dcarr at sdf.lonestar.org
Tue Jun 3 18:09:13 CDT 2003
I also without point, would like to ask how much public money went into
the oed project, which I a member of the public would have to pay $500US
to use?
On Tue, 3 Jun 2003, Daniel R. Allen wrote:
> Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2003 10:10:22 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Daniel R. Allen <da at coder.com>
> To: Stewart C. Russell <scruss at sympatico.ca>, rickm at golden.net
> Cc: kw-pm at mail.pm.org
> Subject: [kw-pm] paying for well-formed content
>
> 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
>
>
>
>
>
>
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dcarr at sdf.lonestar.org
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