Re: Self-referential types

[Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com>]

In article <s08h609obhk23@corp.supernews.com>,
  "Vladimir Olensky" <vladimir_olensky@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I think this is extremely bad. By such a lot of valuable
> information just lost.
> Only participants have it.

There is the amazing facility known as a library (I guess the
online crowd have forgotten about these amazing institutions :-)

> I think that in case of Ada all proceedings and materials
> should be
> freely available online and for download.

When authors create works, including conference presentations,
they are copyrighted. It is up to the presenters and organizers
of conferences to decide how available to make the materials.
Consumers always prefer complete availability, producers are
not always willing to comply :-)

I am sure that if you ask the typical net surfer whether XXX
should be freely available online, the answer will be yes for
almost all possible XXX. It is sort of like asking people if
they would like it better if stores would stop charging money
for their merchandise ...

The dynamics here is quite tricky. Even getting the ISO standard
semi-available was a huge effort. Most owners of copyrights
are very nervous about net availability, and are also nervous
about the kind of sentiment expressed here (everything should
automatically be made available free).

Remember that, following the commerce clause of the
constitution, the purpose of copyright is to encourage
creation. It's hard already to get publishers to risk
doing Ada books, if you insist they all be on line, then
one possible outcome is that they will all be on line,
all zero of them, so you have to work for a balance here.


> I think that this is one of the ways to promote Ada.
> If this work need sponsors I hope that Ada Resource
> Association could be such and moreover it could even sponsor
> the work to make
> most valuable Ada books available online (including setting up
agreements
> with publishers and authors).

Ahem .. this is not just a matter of "work .. [to] .. setting
up agreements", there is $$$ involved. Why would a publisher
publish a book, if anyone can download it free? Well there are
legitimate answers to this and a few publishers have been
convinced to publish electronic books, or allow their hard
copy books to be available on line, but this is an exception.



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