[SCC_Active_Members] History of Apple OSs

[Bernard L. Peuto]

SCC friends

Several good issues came up.

" you can[not] afford to make collection decisions on a piece by piece
basis"

How should we use Wikipedia and other existing sites and information.

On the first one I agree that we cannot make collection decisions on a piece
by piece basis and in the much narrower context of software artifacts I am
in favor of preserving widely with very broad (loose?) criteria in a
minimally indexed and curated repository (sufficient for display and access
in context). The repository being a "heap of information and content" whose
elements might be selected and accepted into the collection with deeper
curation but would still be kept in the case of no further curation. The
idea has been mentioned, for quite some time, by Len, and several other
participants including myself  and it is high time that we go back to it.
Please do no pick too much on my words but focus on the general collecting
concepts:-)

So in the case of this piece of "Apple OS history" it should for sure be
entered in the repository warts and all.

Concerning the Wikipedia. I think that we should provide a complete
historical experience for our web site visitors and I would not be too keen
to point to other sites for the kind of content commonly found in the
Wikipedia. That information should be directly accessible to our own
visitors. Since duplicating their work would not make sense either, I would
recommend that we cite them with permission.

I also agree with Tim's argument on controversial issues. I feel that the
biggest weakness of the Wikipedia is not as much a problem with incorrect
information but a problem of balance between what is covered and what is
missing and should be covered both from a technical and an historical
viewpoint. This lead to my suggestion of selectively using the information
with our own additions.

Bernard 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tim Shoppa [mailto:shoppa at trailing-edge.com] 
> Sent: Wednesday, July 26, 2006 2:23 PM
> To: SCC_active at computerhistory.org; randall.neff at gmail.com; 
> nassi at nassi.com; LMM at acm.org; blpeuto at peuto.com; aek at bitsavers.org
> Subject: Re: [SCC_Active_Members] History of Apple OSs
> 
> Larry Masinter <LMM at acm.org> wrote:
> > (a) accept all contributions
> > (b) point contributors to some other forum which
> >    already collects entries, and just use those
> >    sites as a reference.
> >
> > For example, Wikipedia contains a number of related 
> entries, starting 
> > with:
> >       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_os
> > and   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_history
> >
> >
> > and it would seem like they're doing a pretty good job of 
> 'collecting' 
> > this kind of anecdotal information.
> > I don't see an advantage in CHM duplicating this service piecemeal.
> 
> This particular subject - one which is an excellent example 
> of the many "religious wars" in computing - is not one that 
> is necessarily well preserved by Wikipedia.
> 
> I don't have anything intrinsically against Wikipedia. (In 
> fact it does a lot of things better than a traditional 
> Encyclopedia). But it is constantly being revised/purged 
> based on the beliefs/whims of a few and is not a good way to 
> preserve memories (even recent memories) of anything that 
> might be subject to disagreement (either between religious 
> zealots or between an individual and a corporation).
> 
> Tim.
> 
>