Date: Fri, 11 Jul 97 14:04 BST-1
From: [log in to unmask] (Mike Holderness)
Subject: Re: Lending, reserves, archives definitions
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CHRIS ZIELINSKI, Secretary General, ALCS was thus puzzled:
> -What is "lending" in a digital environment? Does the concept mean
> anything
> online? Note that, if you are making a copy, you are not lending.
> Personally, I doubt that you can "lend" anything online - but I'm
> willing to be persuaded otherwise.
I have a network file system which has a Move command, and I
Move an IBM cryptolope from my system to yours, under an agreement
that you will Move ... I hear the sound of analogies twanging...
> -What about definitions for:
>
> ---electronic reserves (relates to lending: again, I suspect that there
> can
> be no such thing as "electronic reserves", in the strict sense)
> ---electronic archives
> ---electronic backup (Is there any difference between the two?)
On the increasingly rare occasions when I think about computers
in something approaching colloquial English, a backup is a copy
which can be accessed only when a human moves a physical object
(this Zip disk, that 9-track tape); and an archive is a copy
which can be accessed through the same _kind_ of operation I
use to access an original.
I started that sentence with a definition based on timing, but
gave up when it involved subclauses for the caffeine intake of
the laundromat jockey and the lag on the network...
> The questions may seem innocuous at first glance, but they have
> important ramifications.
:-)
Mike Holderness
http://www.poptel.org.uk/nuj/mike
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