[h2o-discuss] meta-discussions

["Jon Garfunkel" <garf@look.boston.ma.us>]

Seems that sometimes this email list *wants* to be a meta-media system like
Slashdot... or even ThirdVoice, which has a much nicer interface. That is to
say, when we're not all agreeing on the virtues of open source, we are
giving pointers to, and sometimes even making comments on, news items.

It may very well be that these meta-commentary systems will truly bring
value to online communities.

ThirdVoice is a great interface for commenting on web pages-- it even has
Jonathan Zittrain's endorsement. Unfortunately, not only is it not open
source, it doesn't even have open API. You can't develop, or even purchase
your own annotations server software which 3V clients could use. So while
h2o could set up a group on the ThirdVoice site, we'd be stuck with their
architecture. ThirdVoice's architecture is driven by a business model, and
not necessarily

Such a shame that existing, open-architecture web-annotations research
projects have gotten no recognition by ThirdVoice, nor by the press in
writing about the technology. I have made this appeal to the www-annotations
list at the Web Consortium; what can be done? Our mailing list is moving
quite slowly, as we are all volunteers, and the W3C is squeezed for time to
endorse any new projects. Still, if you'd ask Tim Berners-Lee, he'd tell you
he'd like to see annotation software.

Surely we'd all agree that we need open software wherever possible. I bring
this appeal here because I figure BCIS needs this software for their future
Open courses. I recognize the similarly-purposed CritLink software adapted
by Wendy Seltzer, recent BCIS fellow, but a superior architecture for a
communications technology can make the world of difference. (sound
familiar?)

I'd have time to work on this software-- but I'd need help. Maybe at the
very least h2o could work to define some standards, and then demand them
from ThirdVoice and other potential vendors.

Jon Garfunkel
Software Engineer
GTE Internetworking