Re: Brave New World

[Pieter Nagel <pieter.nagel@epiuse.co.za>]

  On Fri, 14 Nov 1997, Tod Landis wrote:
  
  > You begin with the statement:
  >        Valid comment on the editorial control of the encyclopedia
  > so I think you see one point I was trying to make, and, in fact,
  > somewhat agree.
  
  Yes, yes. Whether the encyclopedia was totally wrong or only mildly
  biased in labelling Gates as a philantropist, it does demonstrate the
  type of thing that happens when any publishing entity is owned by a
  company. 
  
  Even without ownership there is bias: newspapers blow the trumpet of
  their editors favourite political party; which is well and good if
  you have dozens of different newspapers with dozens of different
  biases.
  
  But if a single company begins to take hold of a vast majority of our
  future computerized communications media, one should be worried. 
  
  What if, for the sake of argument, the vast majority of encyclopedias
  of the future were published in a proprietary Microsoft digital
  format (because that is what they fast majority of Microsoft Virtual
  Bookshelves in the homes can read); and what if the licensing of the
  publishing technology were so steep that mostly Microsft-owned houses
  publish?
  
  Email, CDRom's, websites are, at the moment, idle diversions. But
  they form they basis of our future society (just as TV does now). The
  Microsoft issue is a social one, not only a technical or competitive
  one.
  
  And not limited to "The Software Industry".
  
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