[WikiEN-l] Cars, articles, magic pennies

Thu Mar 3 01:21:52 UTC 2005

> From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
>

> Think of Wikipedia as a massive garage where you can build any car you
> want to. Great tools are provided, a lot of shop manuals are there, and
> you get your own lift and away you go. Fantastic. But every one else,
> and I mean everyone else in the garage can work on your car with you...
[snip]
> But in fact, the fifth, or the hundredth time you're traipsing
> down the lane to find your messed-up, polka-dotted,
> covered-in-chrome-pussycats car, you're kind of inclined to drive it
> into the lake and leave it upside down, wheels spinning.
> (I plagiarized the above from Jason Scott, but I agree with every 
> word.)

> Uncle Ed

> From: Richard Holton <richholton at gmail.com>

> Except...it's not your car!

Ah, that old problematical analogy. The magic thing about intellectual 
"property" is that if someone takes your car and puts polka-dots on it 
and covers it in chrome pussycats the result is that... now you have 
TWO cars.

For example, if Ed Poor borrows Jason Scott's car, Ed Poor has a car 
and Jason Scott still has his. (In this case, I certainly remember the 
phrase about moving from creating content to defending content. I may 
be recalling incorrectly but I don't remember chrome pussycats. Is it 
possible that _Ed_ added chrome pussycats to _Jason's_ car?

Anyone else know Malvina Reynold's "Magic Penny?"

Love is something if you give it away, give it away, give it away,
Love is something if you give it away, you end up having--more!

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/