Re: Groupware for Learning LO2429

jack hirschfeld (jack@his.com)
Wed, 16 Aug 1995 06:11:29 -0400

Replying to LO2393 --

>And, the last issue for this post, to leave you with as a challenge
>or puzzle is - figure out what property rights mean in such a system
>and incorporate them into the system. My hint is to approach the
>data/information/text as a marketplace and generate principles which
>match the effective workings of a marketplace.
>
>Michael McMaster
>Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk

Michael, I'm not sure what you mean by approaching the text as a
marketplace, or where you're headed with this, but here are some of my
thoughts:

In the present world economy, the property rights invested in text treat
text as a commodity whose property rights reside in dissemination. The
rights reside with the author, and use of the property occurs through
copying/pubication of the text.

In an environment like Notes, the "economy" is based on free access and
reproduction of the "text", and all value added is in the "explication" of
the "text". In this way, "text" is both the commodity and the currency of
the marketplace, a conundrum which disappears as the text increases in
value its transformation in use.

This transformation - which is the basis of wealth in a true economy - has
no assignable value in the marketplace of Notes (read here any groupware),
any more than public monuments do in the city square.

I don't think that was what you were getting at, but does it make any
sense?

--
jack@his.com (jack hirschfeld)