[6892] in www-talk@info.cern.ch
Re: HTTP Futures
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Fisher Mark)
Thu Dec 1 07:30:44 1994
Date: Thu, 1 Dec 1994 13:02:26 +0100
Errors-To: listmaster@www0.cern.ch
Reply-To: FisherM@is3.indy.tce.com
From: Fisher Mark <FisherM@is3.indy.tce.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list <www-talk@www0.cern.ch>
Christian Mogensen writes in <9412010904.AA12812@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>:
>Terry Allen writes:
>>Should I actually be able to forbid explicit reference (by UR*)
>>to my published work by SOAPs? The existence of filters of this
>>sort, which can be invoked automatically, offers a line of attack
>>on free speech that it is difficult to duplicate in the print
>>world---it's one of the few genuinely new things in life beyond
>>print.
>
>No - the intent with a SOAP (like a <LINK>) is purely advisory.
>Whether or not the advice is heeded is up to a combination of the
>browser and the user.
Well said. As long as the Web community does not allow governmental bodies
(or groups in league with governmental bodies) to mandate the use of
browsers that force their SOAP advice on users, the information on the Web
will remain unfettered. Don't laugh too hard about the possibility of
government mandates -- the U.S. political correctness movement would
undoubtably love a government mandate forcing people to use browsers that
permit only politically correct material to be viewed. (This applies to the
political correctness of both the left (environmentalism, feminism, ...) and
the right (America as a Christian nation, fornication, ....).)
On the third hand (as a Motie would say :)), if the Web software gets so
complex that it cannot be written except by large corporations, a danger
(hopefully remote) exists of the corporation(s) installing mandatory SOAP
advice use to forestall legal problems ("my 12-year old daughter looked at
http://www.playboy.com and is mentally scarred for life!").
======================================================================
Mark Fisher Thomson Consumer Electronics
fisherm@indy.tce.com Indianapolis, IN
"Just as you should not underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon
traveling 65 mph filled with 8mm tapes, you should not overestimate
the bandwidth of FTP by mail."
