comments on comments by Greg and Dick

Hal Abelson (hal@martigny.ai.mit.edu)
Mon, 13 Feb 95 22:38:35 -0500

Greg makes some good points about being a bit more careful with the
wording. As a case in point, he and I don't see eye to eye on the
degree to which the cost of specialized worksations should be borne
centrally vs. picked up by the departments. We should flag
this as a point of contention that needs to be addressed later, or
talk about it at some future committee meeting (probably both).

Dick -- you sent your comments to the public mailing list. You
probably didn't mean to do that. (More hazards of computers.)

In any case, I agree with the thrust of Dick's comments -- too much
emphasis on WWW, too little spelling out of the consequences for MIT's
business -- but I disagree as to strategy.

Instead of us going off in our own directions in making an outline,
I'd rather see a complete draft, including recommendations, first.
I'm having a bit of trouble commenting on the draft because I don't
know whether something is missing because it is missing or whether
Paul just hasn't written that section yet. Also, although the vision
sections are extremely important, the recommendations are the meat of
the report. I'd rather have a set of concrete recommendations that we
can discuss and agree on, and then make sure the report presents a
vision that backs these up.

-- Hal