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The real problem with Xanadu is that it's based on a fundamentally flawed concept -- knowable provenance. The problem is one of having an overly literal and sim

The real problem with Xanadu is that it's based on a fundamentally flawed concept -- knowable provenance. The problem is one of having an overly literal and simplistic view of what a document is (indeed, this problem is embedded in the announcement page itself). Such and such is linked to THE ORIGINAL sourcedoc. The problem is that with almost any significant document provenance is ambiguous and unknowable, which turns anything of significance into an amiguous mare's nest of noise links. Take for a simple example "Macbeth". We don't have the "original", we don't know for certain which version derives from which version, and we don't know for certain who is the source of any given change. Yet Nelson uses a shakespeare play as one of his examples blithely ignoring the problem of provenance throughout. Now imagine a really thorny issue like the Bible or a particle physics paper. Imagine if every document in the world were created and maintained using the same bug free version of word with change tracking on. Any quotations or abstractions were carefully done using OLE embedding. No-one ever misquoted someone else from memory, or accidentally deleted a file and then typed it back in from an old print out. And all the edits acted as links. Ok it still wouldn't work. Welcome to xanadu. Comparing the web unfavorably to xanadu is like DOS fans decrying the mac because they could do so much more from the command line, except that DOS actually worked at the time the Mac came out.

polarix 12y ago
It doesn't have to be the original. In most of his writing, the refs have been content-addressed (hash). It's fascinating to see him backpedal to location-based addressing (URL) here, given the extent to which he's railed against that concept in the past. I would have imagined at least a hashsum retained as a field in the xanadoc file.
- DennisP 12y ago
  I've read a fair amount of his stuff but hadn't seen him talk about hash-based addressing, do you know where you've seen it? In Literary Machines he wrote about a hierarchical addressing scheme called Tumblers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumbler_(Project_Xanadu) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumbler_(Project_Xanadu)
- mattlutze 12y ago
  I was under the impression that the point of transclusion is to ensure no actual copying occurs -- that every quotation or paraphrasing of a prior work is explicitly connected to to the prior work, ensuring the "truth" of the quotation and the connection to its own foundations. If this doesn't point to a single version of something, if the provenance of the source isn't provable, I'm not sure I understand the point of the strong source linking. Unless I'm misunderstanding your comment.
- bmm6o 12y ago
  Not only that, it's based on byte offset and length: "SourceContent=8BIT,1279,492,https://archive.org/download/MoeJusteOrigins/8-BigBang-LostSource.txt https://archive.org/download/MoeJusteOrigins/8-BigBang-LostS... "? Is the idea that the target file is never modified (or any new versions get a new URL)? Also, I think that HTTP got it right when encoding is returned with the document (rather than specified in the link), but if you've already made the mistake of dealing with byte offsets you're tied to a particular representation.
specialist 12y ago
> fundamentally flawed concept -- knowable provenance. Agreed. Xanadu is to the "the web" as ontology is to folksonomy.
e12e 12y ago
> Take for a simple example "Macbeth". Macbeth isn't under copyright. As far as I've understood most of the point with Xanadu wrt [ed:provenance], is that it is concerned with authors being able to claim ownership in order to stimulate new writing in the age of zero-cost copying. In my personal opinion, in some sense, if no-one ever got paid (again) for any work that has already been published -- that might very well have a positive effect on new creations -- if all those new creations were free to decide on price/availability.
- DigitalJack 12y ago
  just fyi, in case that wasn't a typo: http://oilpatchwriting.wordpress.com/2012/09/19/providence-vs-provenance/ http://oilpatchwriting.wordpress.com/2012/09/19/providence-v...
  - e12e 12y ago
    Whoops, thank you. Not sure how I managed that when the parent comment used the correct word. On a side note, the examples from that text is a little strange, as providence also can mean "the prudence and care exercised by someone in the management of resources [ant: {improvidence}, {shortsightedness}]". So, while I think the example is indeed wrong, there appear to actually be a correct reading for the use of providence in this case (there's no long term plan made to take into account the implication of the well logs)?

polarix 12y ago

It doesn't have to be the original. In most of his writing, the refs have been content-addressed (hash). It's fascinating to see him backpedal to location-based addressing (URL) here, given the extent to which he's railed against that concept in the past. I would have imagined at least a hashsum retained as a field in the xanadoc file.

DennisP 12y ago
I've read a fair amount of his stuff but hadn't seen him talk about hash-based addressing, do you know where you've seen it? In Literary Machines he wrote about a hierarchical addressing scheme called Tumblers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumbler_(Project_Xanadu) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumbler_(Project_Xanadu)
mattlutze 12y ago
I was under the impression that the point of transclusion is to ensure no actual copying occurs -- that every quotation or paraphrasing of a prior work is explicitly connected to to the prior work, ensuring the "truth" of the quotation and the connection to its own foundations. If this doesn't point to a single version of something, if the provenance of the source isn't provable, I'm not sure I understand the point of the strong source linking. Unless I'm misunderstanding your comment.
bmm6o 12y ago
Not only that, it's based on byte offset and length: "SourceContent=8BIT,1279,492,https://archive.org/download/MoeJusteOrigins/8-BigBang-LostSource.txt https://archive.org/download/MoeJusteOrigins/8-BigBang-LostS... "? Is the idea that the target file is never modified (or any new versions get a new URL)? Also, I think that HTTP got it right when encoding is returned with the document (rather than specified in the link), but if you've already made the mistake of dealing with byte offsets you're tied to a particular representation.

specialist 12y ago

> fundamentally flawed concept -- knowable provenance. Agreed. Xanadu is to the "the web" as ontology is to folksonomy.

e12e 12y ago

> Take for a simple example "Macbeth". Macbeth isn't under copyright. As far as I've understood most of the point with Xanadu wrt [ed:provenance], is that it is concerned with authors being able to claim ownership in order to stimulate new writing in the age of zero-cost copying. In my personal opinion, in some sense, if no-one ever got paid (again) for any work that has already been published -- that might very well have a positive effect on new creations -- if all those new creations were free to decide on price/availability.

DigitalJack 12y ago
just fyi, in case that wasn't a typo: http://oilpatchwriting.wordpress.com/2012/09/19/providence-vs-provenance/ http://oilpatchwriting.wordpress.com/2012/09/19/providence-v...
- e12e 12y ago
  Whoops, thank you. Not sure how I managed that when the parent comment used the correct word. On a side note, the examples from that text is a little strange, as providence also can mean "the prudence and care exercised by someone in the management of resources [ant: {improvidence}, {shortsightedness}]". So, while I think the example is indeed wrong, there appear to actually be a correct reading for the use of providence in this case (there's no long term plan made to take into account the implication of the well logs)?