[Gzz-commits] manuscripts/pointers article.rst

[Benja Fallenstein]

CVSROOT:        /cvsroot/gzz
Module name:    manuscripts
Branch:         
Changes by:     Benja Fallenstein <address@hidden>      03/10/27 08:55:45

Modified files:
        pointers       : article.rst 

Log message:
        more intro

CVSWeb URLs:
http://savannah.gnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/gzz/manuscripts/pointers/article.rst.diff?tr1=1.12&tr2=1.13&r1=text&r2=text

Patches:
Index: manuscripts/pointers/article.rst
diff -u manuscripts/pointers/article.rst:1.12 
manuscripts/pointers/article.rst:1.13
--- manuscripts/pointers/article.rst:1.12       Mon Oct 27 08:46:56 2003
+++ manuscripts/pointers/article.rst    Mon Oct 27 08:55:45 2003
@@ -17,12 +17,51 @@
 
 .. Standing on the shoulders of giants: Example of Web links rotting away
 
-.. History of location-dependence: `TBL ref`_ (like in HT'03 paper)
+In 1997, NASA launched the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft
+on a mission to Saturn. Before the launch, the mission
+was widely criticized for its use of radioisotope
+thermoelectric generators (RTGs), using plutonium
+to generate electricity. Activists claim that
+the launch of such devices poses a threat to
+billions of human lives [#]_. To facilitate the debate,
+SpaceViews, a publication of the National Space Society,
+published a list of links to web pages of both
+Cassini opponents and supporters [#]_.
+
+.. [#] ``http://www.seds.org/spaceviews/cassini/rtg.html``
+
+.. [#] ``http://www.seds.org/spaceviews/cassini/rtgpages.html``.
+   All links dereferenced on October 27th, 2003.
+
+Of the 83 links provided by SpaceViews, 29 continue to work in 2003.
+Only six years after the launch, two thirds of the debate
+have fallen off the Web. "If I have seen further it is by standing
+on the shoulders of giants;" but how can we do that today,
+if the shoulders keep rotting away?
+
+.. Links shouldn't break when documents move or
+   publishers lose interest
+
+There are two reasons for broken links: Either the original
+publisher has moved the target document to a new address,
+or they have stopped publishing it, usually because keeping
+up a Web page requires some amount of maintenance and they
+have lost interest.
+
+We don't propose that every byte of information ever published
+on the Web should have to be kept around forever. However,
+we do believe that as long as someone does keep a copy,
+data should remain accessible, and links should continue
+to work.
 
 .. Location-independent, semantic-free, *self-verifying* 
    identifiers (ref SFR paper [balakrishnan03semanticfree]_,
    [walfish03dns]_); example: hash-based (ref 
    ``hash`` URN namespace Internet-Draft; ref Freenet & others)
+
+
+
+.. History of location-dependence: `TBL ref`_ (like in HT'03 paper)
 
 .. Proposal: A location-independent Web (closest thing is Freenet (ref))