Walt at Random

To some extent, I saw this one coming. The first question, answer, and expansion in OCA and GLP 1 wasn’t really designed to provoke, but I knew it might be considered provocative.

I thought it might serve as a test of reading comprehension: Would the Project Gutenberg supporter be able or willing to understand the distinctions I was making (between the plain text of a book and the pages of the book, for example) or would they just fulminate that I was demeaning PG and the Michael who made it all possible?

Turns out the first response came in two days ago–but it came in to citesandinsights@gmail.com, the special email address for those who verify up front that their comments can be published, and I don’t check that email address very often. (This is the first such submission…)

Two more arrived today.

Bruce Albrecht sent the first response, a long and thoughtful one. He begins:

I would like to take exception to the several places in the December
2005 edition of Cites and Insight
(http://cites.boisestate.edu/civ5i14.pdf) where you dismiss the Project
Gutenberg as merely a library of e-texts as opposed to e-books, which
are clearly better.

In the lowest common denominator form, PG texts are, as you say, only
etexts. However, many, if not most of the new works contributed to PG
these days from Distributed Proofreaders also include a secondary HTML
version which include all the features of an e-book that Karen Coyle
claims work from PG lack.

He goes on to note an example and all of its features, explain what Distributed Proofreaders is doing, and question my association of typography and page design with the book itself as written by the author, as opposed to the particular edition.

Well, there aren’t “several places…where I dismiss” PG as merely a library of etexts; I only see one place. But never mind. I was mistaken.

I plead guilty: I had grown so sick of Michael Hart’s inflated ego, his wayward ways with facts and figures (particularly back in the late unlamented “Ask Dr. Internet” days), and other aspects of His Project that I hadn’t gone back to Project Gutenberg in a long time. Everything Hart writes continues to emphasize plain ASCII as what PG is all about. When I did visit the site, I still find that emphasis–although there’s a mention of other formats hidden near the end of a very long FAQ.

And, sure enough, if you start clicking on entries in the catalog, eventually you’ll wind up with some HTML offerings (even a PDF or two!).

Because there’s at least one PDF, the answer to my first question (“How many books has Project Gutenberg digitized and made available online?”) should not be “None” but “A few.” Further clarification: There are several thousand “ebooks” by definitions I’d agree with, namely the HTML versions, but only a few digitized books–that is, digital replications of book pages. End of further clarification 12/3/05. The general answer is correct, however: PG’s primary thrust as explicated endlessly by its founder continues to be etexts, not ebooks (and I would note that Hart would probably take offense at the first sentence in the second paragraph of Albrecht’s letter). But even HTML digitizes the text and organization of a book, not the edition itself. (Google’s public domain offerings, as currently planned, offer the digitized editions, but not in ebook form…)

Then there’s the issue of whether an ebook should be a digital facsimile of a print edition, as opposed to a properly-organized version of the work itself. In this case, there are good arguments to be made on several sides. For some purposes, the digital facsimile is superior; for many purposes, the HTML (or TEI, or whatever) version of the work is superior. I think it’s legitimate to call both of these ebooks.

So, to the extent that PG does now include proper HTML versions of works, I’ll say that there are ebooks on PG.

As to the other two pieces of mail:

• In one case, I’m waiting for permission to publish, since the mail came in to waltcrawford@gmail.com. The correspondent raises a similar issue in briefer form, and says “it’s not fair to represent PG’s content so inaccurately.” My best defense is that PG’s founder makes such a point of representing PG that way that it’s easy for mere mortals to get confused.
• The other case includes a “response” from Michael Hart himself, and since it was posted to a list (and forwarded from that list), I don’t feel I need his permission to quote some excerpts. The problem is that he was responding to exceprts from the article (I assume, given the responses), which leads to some silliness. He seems to assume that I’m holding Google up as the paragon of ebook provision. But Hart’s derision when it comes to caring about typography and page design can’t be missed; apparently caring about anything related to print is “obsessive.” I’m not sure what, if anything, I’ll actually use from Hart’s stuff; it’s too easy to quote without comment, since he doesn’t need much rope…

There will certainly be feedback/followup in the next issue, maybe even a separate essay. I see one discussion possibility already (having nothing to do with pure ASCII)…

Go read this post at Library Dust.

I have no idea what libraries do (although Michael certainly raises an interesting question), but I surely wish that magazine publishers would stop stinking up their products. (My wife, who’s pretty sensitive to that sort of thing, is a tad more vehement…)

Right now, at home that is, I’m trying to read the November Conde Nast Traveler. Apparently there was a perfume insert that I ripped out (or at least I can’t find it), but it’s still strong enough a week later that it’s hard to put up with. (But then, that magazine seems to have odd-smelling paper anyway…)

Actually, the other advertisers should demand that perfume inserts be stopped: I don’t look at ads when I’ve given up and trashed the magazine for stinking up the household…

The cover sheet and indexes for Cites & Insights 5 (2005) is now available (one cover sheet and two indexes totalling 18 pages).

This completes volume 5.

If your institution actually binds print volumes of C&I, I’d love to hear from you.

Our Saturday night DVD movie was Flight of the Phoenix–the new one with Dennis Quaid, not the 1965 original with Jimmy Stewart.

My wife doesn’t much care for flying. Amazingly, she made it through the first half hour with only the comment that “I’ll never get on an airplane again.” (Not likely to be true, but it will take a really great cruise on the other end of that flight…)

The rest of the movie? Good, compelling, not too many lapses in logic and continuity. (I don’t remember the 1965 version, so can’t compare. I added both the new and old War of the Worlds to our Netflix queue at the same time, so we can make a comparison.)

But this isn’t a movie review. We enjoyed it. You might; you might not.

We had time to watch the 41-minute “making of” featurette. We were looking forward to it: To what extent did they actually try to accomplish the key plot element, and what were filming conditions actually like (in Namibia, substituting for the Gobi desert)?

We were disappointed in the featurette, for two primary reasons:

• The studio tried too hard to make the featurette a mini-movie, with lots of dramatic music sometimes swamping the dialogue. That’s minor.
• The director, John Moore, apparently can’t say ten words without one or two of them being f*ck or f**king. This got real old real fast. Either word used appropriately is, well, appropriate. Either word used instead of having a real vocabulary is just annoying. It got to the point where we both cringed a little whenever Moore appeared on screen

Actually, John Moore generally impressed us as being a first-rate a**h*le. We’ve never seen any of his other movies. With any luck, we never will. It’s fair to say there weren’t a bunch of quotes from cast members saying what a pleasure Moore is to work with. Admittedly, the filming was done under tough conditions–but geez, Moore seems to be a real pill.

Dr. Ilene Rockman died yesterday–and that’s the last time I’ll use “Dr.,” because she was always Ilene to my wife and me.

You may know or know of Ilene through her many professional and editorial activities within ACRL, at the California State University System, and elsewhere. Charles W. Bailey, Jr., posted this notice earlier today; it offers a good brief summary of her career.

I might have met Ilene at some editorial board function many years ago (actually, I almost certainly did)–but we really got to know her when she married Fred Gertler. Fred is a close friend; has been for more than a quarter-century. When Fred married Ilene, she became a close friend too. Fred called this morning to let us know; we just returned from a visit.

Ilene had great intelligence, persistence, energy, and personality. I knew some of her many accomplishments. I also knew she and Fred made a great pair for the last decade–and admired her as a person as much as as a high-achieving librarian.

We always got together for a combined New Year’s/anniversary (ours) brunch, and typically a few more times each year. We’ll miss her. So will the library field (in general) and, I’m sure, thousands of individual librarians.

There’s more to say, but that’s enough for here and now.

Update, November 30: Please see the comments for this entry, including Fred Gertler’s eloquent eulogy.

Cites & Insights 5:14, December 2005, is now available for downloading.

This somewhat oversized 28-page issue (essays also available as HTML separates from the C&I home page) is, to use a seasonal metaphor, a post-Thanksgiving feast for the mind, with two big helpings of scanning-related goodness, a turkey of a story, a small side dish of crow, and a dessert helping of odd/old flicks.

Enough of the metaphor, here’s the details:

• Perspective: OCA and GLP 1: Ebooks, Etext, Libraries and the Commons – the first of two essays on the Open Content Alliance and Google Book Search/Google Library Project. This shorter essay consists entirely of my own perspectives on the two projects and related topics.
• Following Up: Mea Culpa – While this section includes several “following up” notes, the “mea culpa” regards “Analogies, Gatekeepers and Blogging”–Seth Finkelstein and Jon Garfunkel have convinced me that I’m not qualified to deny the existence of “gatekeepers” within the biblioblogosphere. Read why.
• ©3 Perspective: Sony BMG: DRM Gone Bad – How an innovative, customer-oriented consumer electronics company can also be a Big Media turkey.
• Perspective: OCA and GLP 2: Steps on the Digitization Road – The big essay (roughly 10K words, 13 pages, and the reason this issue’s so big: Quotes and comments on developments within these complementary projects, organized by topic.
• Offtopic Perspective: SciFi Classics 50 Movie Pack, Part 1 – a little leavening to finish the issue. From Hercules and Gamera to the Wasp Woman and Pia Zadora, mini-reviews of 26 movies (the first six discs of a megapack that now goes for $20), a few of which deserve the “SciFi” label. Be your own MST3K script writer!

Note: While this is the final issue for volume 5 of Cites & Insights, it is not the end of the volume. The index (a volume title sheet and index) will appear in the reasonably near future, for those few (?) who actually bind Cites & Insights.

This post noted the availability of several new 50-movie packs, most all with “Classic” in the name, at a new lower price of $19.99 from Overstock (plus a humongous $1.40 shipping and handling charge for USPS shipping).

First a correction: The new company name “Mill Creek Entertainment,” not “Mill Pond,” and that’s about the only change in packaging from the old TreeLine 50-movie packs. Even the UPC company portion is the same, 26831. (The musicals were made in Singapore; three of the four previous packs were made in Taiwan; the first doesn’t have a made-in label. Given the full UPC numbers involved, I’d guess “Classic Musicals” is the 16th such pack–the first, “Family Classics,” was 26831 07001, this one’s 26831 07016, and the others are somewhere in between.)

Second, a little amplification. I ordered the set on Sunday from Overstock in Minnesota, using the cheapest possible shipping. The order shipped on Monday. From Minnesota. It arrived on Wednesday. In Mountain View, California. This is why I don’t pay for rush shipping if USPS or USPS Media Mail is available…around here, at least, I like the Post Office’s performance.

There are 50 titles. Some of them aren’t what you’d think of as “movies” (i.e., two collections of shorts, each running less than 45 minutes total), and some are musical revues rather than musicals as such. Most are in black & white (including at least one marked as color). Five are movies I have in other collections (but that’s OK: The five range from pretty good to first rate, and those five are in color). Most are old, as you’d expect, although one features Tuesday Weld and Chuck Berry. I probably won’t get to these pictures for a year or so, but I’m looking forward to it–quite a few of these are little-known movies that were never widely released, and I suspect there will be some great performances among them.

Third and finally, a possibly-redundant note as to why I find these megapacks so interesting (doing the reviews is just fun…): These packs testify to the wealth of material that is or should be in the public domain–and the hotly competitive and technology-driven DVD market makes it feasible to sell a package of 50 movies for $20, in a box that weighs less than a pound and takes up less shelf space than two videocassettes. These aren’t “DVD quality” remasters from the original films; they’re typically VHS-quality, sometimes not quite that good, leaving lots of room for the best movies to come out as higher-quality DVD releases. But these sets offer extensive looks into movie history and loads of good entertainment, at a price and in a form that was impossible prior to DVDs. They’re great cheap fodder for film studies, understanding the culture, and–well–making fun of the bad’uns.

Similarly, but in a different vein, cheap DVD production costs and compact storage make it possible to release very high quality sets of great old (and new) TV shows with loads of extras and picture and sound quality few of us ever saw when the shows were new. (If the music rights can be cleared, that is–I wonder whether seasons 3 and later of Moonlighting will ever emerge from clearance oblivion…)

DVDs will be gone by 2012? Here are a dozen more reasons I regard that as a silly projection…and why, even with copy protection (which these discs may or may not have), I love DVD.

Thanks for growing up in an absurdly functional family, where even as the unexpected final child I knew I was loved, knew reading mattered (and was an everyday thing, given the books, magazines, and newspapers around the house), knew that people were more important than money, and knew that my parents expected me to make my own decisions.

Thanks for growing up with mutual respect–with good values being shown by example, not by rote training, punishment, imposed belief systems or admonition.

Thanks to UC Berkeley for showing me a broader world, allowing me to get a great education if I wanted it, exposing me to world-class teachers (including a Nobel laureate or two), and dispelling any sense that high SAT scores and a facility for writing made me anything special. Thanks to the student co-op for exposing me to so many different viewpoints, making a connection between effort and economics, putting academics first without ignoring socialization, and encouraging me to learn something about user-centered design as part of the advisory committee on the first purpose-built student co-op at Berkeley (and the first co-ed dorm as well). Convincing experienced dorm architects that students need available high-level room lighting for group study and conversation: Priceless.

Thanks to the Doe Library and its people for acculturating me in library ways, putting up with me at times (as a student employee and later), exposing me to a world-class collection, and accidentally turning me into a programmer/analyst/designer along the way…oh, and not incidentally for also employing a woman working her way through library school who filled in for someone else handling a weekly process connected to the data-entry system I designed: The small problem she had in the process resulted in our meeting, me walking her home after work, and our being married almost 28 years so far…

Thanks to RLG for taking me on and providing a range of interesting and usually-worthwhile experiences and areas of growth, and for making it clear that my writing and speaking wouldn’t be controlled or censored. Oh, and for giving me some time off to speak during the years I was in high demand.

Thanks to the people at LC who didn’t have the time to write the book people needed about MARC. Were it not for them (and for the inaccurate information being used at one library school), I would probably never have become a book writer. (And of course thanks to the librarians throughout Berkeley’s branch system and Stanford’s libraries who made it possible to get so much research done over the years–with particular gratitude to the librarians at Berkeley’s former library school library, back when Berkeley had a library school.) (And thanks to Ed Wall for encouraging and publishing my long-running series, to my wife and Kathie Bales for convincing me to apply to edit the LITA Newsletter, and so on, and so on…)

Thanks to the librarians at Stanislaus Public Library when I was growing up, at Redwood City and Menlo Park libraries at various times, and certainly at Mountain View Public Library now. I appreciate the services, the collections, and the people.

Thanks to everyone who’s encouraged me to write, invited me to speak, attacked my preconceptions, pushed me on technology and library issues, and generally kept things interesting.

I could go on (and on and…) but I’ll stop here.

Canadians have already had their turn. Now it’s ours. There may be a lot of things wrong with the world, but there’s still a lot of things to be grateful for. These are just a few of mine.

That’s the title of a new book from Libraries Unlimited, edited by Nancy Courtney. Subtitle: “A primer on computer technologies for the low-tech librarian.” ISBN 1-59158-233-4; 184 p. (paper); $40. Here’s the publisher’s description.

I mention it because I just received my author’s copy. The book’s based on the Ohio State University “Technology for the Rest of Us” seminar in May 2004, a wonderful event that I participated in as speaker and listener. My chapter is “OpenURL basics,” the first portion of which appeared in Cites & Insights

Other chapters cover computer networks (Bob Molyneux), Wireless LANs (Bill Drew), Cybertheft and security (Mark Cain), RFID (Eric Schnell), Blogs and RSS (Darlene Fichter and Frank Cervone), XML (Art Rhyno), OAI (Sarah Shreeves), Institutional repositories (Charly Bauer), Adaptive Technologies (Jerry Hensley), and digital image management (Samantha Hastings and Elise Lewis). I seem to remember other speakers, but it was a long time ago…

I haven’t read the book yet, but it was a heck of a 3-day seminar.

I wrote this post a few days ago because I thought Google did a smart thing in changing the name “Google Print” to “Google Book Search.” They took a questionable name with implications of availability and turned into a name that focuses on finding, not getting.

Last Saturday, I added an update because I saw two or three library bloggers calling the service “Google Books.” (I didn’t link to any one because it wasn’t just one.)

I’m seeing more of that today. Oh, and one of those who’d done it originally seems to feel that “Book Search” is too many syllables for a Google service. (I wonder what this person calls Google Scholar? Google Schol?)

I would leave well enough alone, except that this particular blogger also very much identifies herself as a Writer.

I believe that if I thought of myself as a Writer, I would also be sensitive to the importance of word choice–and to the desirability of respecting others’ choice of words and names.

Heck, I don’t think of myself as a Writer first and foremost–but I care about the language enough to recognize that there’s a huge difference between “Books” and “Book Search,” and that it’s not likely an accidental choice on Google’s part.

I suppose that, as Martin Luther didn’t say, it all depends whose intentions are being ignored.

It appears that TreeLine Films has found even more flicks that are either public domain or that it can license for next to nothing. I haven’t been to Overstock for many moons, but checking there just now, I see:

• Classic Musicals (50 musicals), which I’m sure is new
• Historic Classics (50 movies, all named, all history-related)
• Gunslinger Classics

in addition to the ones I’ve seen before (all either 50 movies/TV movies, 100 TV episodes or cartoons, or 150 serial episodes, each on 12 double-sided double-density DVDs), e.g. War Classics, Hollywood Legends, Comedy Classics, Mystery Classics, Sci-Fi Classics, Western Classics, Martial Arts Classics…

Indeed, 16 of the 24 DVD box sets on the first of nine pages (ranked by “top sellers”) are TreeLine megapacks. (More than 16, but there are some duplications.)

They’ve also dropped the price to $19.98–and dropped the silly “$199.98″ list price to a more plausible $29.99 on all the newer boxes.

I see a few of these (and one more, Dark Crimes) at Amazon, for $26.95. Amazon has a longer listing for the musicals (which I couldn’t pass up)–apparently it includes quite a few music shorts.

Oh, and TreeLine may now be Mill Pond. Whatever.

This post at the Official Google Blog comments on Google’s plan for citywide wireless broadband in Mountain View (where I live and work).

Here’s the great quote:

To this end, I am proud to be working with the City Council, the city librarian, the police department, numerous neighborhood associations, both of the school superintendents, and (of course) the bookmobile driver. And huge thanks in particular to Ellis Burns at the City of Mountain View.

Yes, Mountain View does have a bookmobile. (This city of 72,000 doesn’t have any branch libraries, and I suspect given the shape and nature of the city that’s sensible. The main library is heavily used, and got a great shout-out just this week from a Palo Alto writer holding it up as superior to Palo Alto’s libraries–a situation which, if true, comes about partly because Palo Alto has more branches than it can afford to run properly.)

Anyway: Look at the order. The city librarian comes right after the City Council, and the bookmobile driver gets special notice.

Anyone who thinks Google is out to replace public libraries really doesn’t understand Google very well. Not that I do, but this post is certainly an indicator of corporate intentions.

(A question for down the road: Will we be able to drop our recently-added DSL account in favor of free wi-fi? We’ll have to see. Given that we don’t get cell phone coverage within our house, I’m not too sanguine: “Citywide coverage” doesn’t necessarily mean high-bandwidth coverage in every physical location within the city. But it might…or, at the least, the presence of free wi-fi may help to convince SBC to keep the DSL prices low!)

Two of these count as “sci-fi” in B-movie forms. The other two caused me problems as a viewer, but very different problems.

The Lost Jungle, 1934, b&w, David Howard and Armand Schaefer (dir.), Clyde Beatty. 1:08

This is the “feature version” of a serial with the same name, which ran roughly four hours total. Maybe the four-hour version had a more coherent plot. The short version is mostly wild animal “training” and capture, with a pathetic jungle-rescue plot added. Here’s the problem: Clyde Beatty may have been the “good” animal trainer, as opposed to a vicious underling portrayed in the movie, but we’re still talking about removing proud predators from their native environments, “training” them with whips and other methods, and putting them on display. I’m no PETA person, but I am an HSUS member and I couldn’t watch the movie without some disdain and discomfort. Different times, I guess. Otherwise, weakly acted and an erratic plot. $0.

Mesa of Lost Women, 1953, b&w, Ron Ormand and Herbert Tevos (dir.), Jackie Coogan, Lyle Talbot (narration). 1:10 [1:09].

Mad scientist creating giant immortal women and stunted little men—oh, and giant spiders as a byproduct—within a remote Mexican mesa. Thrills! Chills! Really absurd plot and endless guitar strumming! Exotic dances! Portentous narration! A mess, but an amusing mess. Sometimes-damaged print. $0.50.

Assignment Outer Space, 1960, color, Antonio Margheriti (dir.), Rik Von Nutter, Gabriella Farinon, David Montresor. 1:13

A newsman gets assigned to a space station whose commander doesn’t really want him there, and of course there’s an Earth-threatening emergency almost immediately (a derelict space ship that emits a sun-temperature field surrounding it for several thousand miles is about to enter Earth orbit and destroy all life—we do like to launch ambitious projects, don’t we?). Classic B sci-fi and of course there’s a female crew member who almost immediately falls deeply in love with the reporter. Maybe one reason they had trouble with the spaceships is that the meters are obviously audio distortion meters (no attempt to obscure or replace the labels: RMS Wow doesn’t have much to do with navigating a spaceship). Decent production values, somewhat faded color, nothing great but watchable. $1.

Laser Mission, 1990, color, BJ Davis (dir.), Brandon Lee, Debi A. Monahan, Ernest Borgnine, rated R. 1:24.

How do you get a 15-year-old movie with major stars on a cheap 50-movie pack? This one has to be in copyright. Yes, it is that Brandon Lee, Bruce Lee’s son—and how many Ernest Borgnines do you know? Excellent color, no signs of print damage, at least full VHS quality and maybe a little better, good production values. So what’s the problem? It’s meretricious tripe: A story about a mercenary who takes great delight in slaughtering as many “enemies” as he can, occasionally with martial arts moves but mostly with rapid-fire weaponry. And he’s the hero. There’s a “science” twist: a diamond about the size of a golf ball (introduced at a luncheon with maybe two security guards), with which an aging scientist (Borgnine) can, after the rock’s stolen, be coerced into building a “super laser weapon that creates atomic explosions” or something of the sort. The villains appear to be ex-Nazis in South America. I think. Debi Monahan (a looker, of course) is supposed to be the scientist’s daughter—which certainly seems believable as she whips out her thigh-mounted pistol and outshoots Lee. I could only watch it by treating the violence as cartoon violence: The body count was in the hundreds, usually for no apparent reason. I can’t recommend this one even as high camp. $0.

And there it is: The end of the first half. Look for the whole thing in a future issue of Cites & Insights (I would say “the next issue,” but it’s always possible that space problems will force it forward.)

Now, back to the TV movies…

Here’s the post announcing the name change, and going to books.google.com shows the name change: Google Print is now Google Book Search.

It’s not a new initiative. It’s a name change. In this case, I think it’s an enormously sensible name change–recognizing that the thrust of the project is discovery, not full-text access.

And since the December Cites & Insights, with a big Perspective on OCA and the Google Print Library Project and a smaller (and much more controversial) Perspective trying to put some of this stuff into context, is not out yet and won’t be until at least the weekend after Thanksgiving (U.S. Thanksgiving: the earliest issue date would be November 26), I have plenty of time to make appropriate changes.

Good for Google. Now, if they’d coordinate the public-domain portion of GLP with OCA…(which could happen any time, and about which I have zero insider knowledge)…

Update Saturday, November 19: I’m seeing several bloggers referring to Google Book Search as “Google Books.”

I think that’s unfortunate–that it repeats and even strengthens the misunderstandings engendered by “Google Print.”

Google’s pretty clear that the primary goal of Google Book Search is just that–providing new ways to locate books, and making millions of books part of the set of data searchable (but not always directly retrievable) via Google (just as Google Scholar doesn’t always retrieve the actual articles). While out-of-copyright books scanned as part of GLP may be fully readable on screen, a good case can be made that they’re not really ebooks, given that they can only be read on screen and while connected to Google, one page at a time, with no clear way to bookmark if you were (ahem) ambitious (/ahem) enough to want to read through a whole book that way.

It must be wonderful to be a pundit–and never be wrong!

John Dvorak wrote a truly atrocious column in the July 18 PC Magazine, “Creative Commons Humbug.” It began with the question “Will someone explain to me the benefits of a trendy system developed by Professor Lawrence Lessig of Stanford?”

Fair enough–but Dvorak sure didn’t seem to be asking an open question. He proceeded to say, “This is one of the dumbest initiatives ever but forth by the tech community. I mean seriously dumb. Eye-rolling dumb…” “Creative Commons actually seems to be a dangerous system with almost zero benefits to the public, copyright holders, or those of us who would like a return to a shorter-length copyright law.” Later, he says that Creative Commons “is similar to a license”–much like his published rant is similar to a column. Later? “This is nonsense.”

He goes on and on…and ends, “Will this nonsense ever end?”

Well…someone called him on it, explained how difficult it is to voluntarily reduce your copyright rights (particularly without abandoning them altogether), and so on. And here I quote Donna Wentworth’s October 28 post at Copyfight:

So will Dvorak write another column admitting that he was wrong? Not so fast. Explains Dvorak:
“My column was never wrong, my column was questioning….I was saying ‘I don’t get it, will somebody explain it to me, please?’…Sometimes you’ve got to go public with your bafflement, which I do…”

Isn’t that wonderful? You can attack something outright, call it nosense, belittle it, and so on–and as long as you include at least one question somewhere–”What is this all about anyway?” should do as an all-purpose question–you never have to admit you’re wrong. You were “questioning.”

Right. Before, I was beginning to regard Dvorak as frequently nonsensical and getting tired. Now, I regard him as a hypocritical jerk, too full of himself and his bafflegab to even admit that he was flat-out wrong, damaging Creative Commons to an audience of more than a million people.