Mitchell's refusal of any rewriting of his work seems understandable to me. Would image pdf with underlying text for searchability satisfy both belligerents and put an end to this lengthy dispute?
Jed? Mitchell? Michel 2009/10/1, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]>: > Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: > >>>Fine! So start with the abstract in that format, and include the >>>rest of the paper, as scanned, as if it were graphics. Problem solved! >>> Next? >>> >>>Brian >> >>Brian, unfortunately, didn't get it, why his "solution" was utterly >>inadequate. > > He got it as soon as I explained. I gave him the list of 7 reasons > and he immediately agreed. > > People who have not worked with web pages, technical documentation, > machine translation, braille readers and whatnot are not likely to > know this stuff. I have been involved with such things for a long > time, and I have distributed millions of papers, so I know what's > needed. It is technical minutia, but done right it can enhance the > web page and help the readers. > > >>Given that it appears that, for at least some of the papers, >>searchable text PDF already exists (I pointed to the archive on >>newenergytimes.com), the essential barrier would be lack of explicit >>permission to host those papers in that format. >> >>An alternative would have been for the text to be converted to a >>file as he proposed, and then for Schwartz would approve it. It >>seems Schwarz did suggest this was acceptable, but ... who was to do >>the substantial work? > > No. Swartz adamantly -- nay VOCIFEROUSLY -- opposed the use of text > Acrobat. He insisted that his papers be uploaded in image Acrobat > only. I have no earthly idea why he makes this demand. I don't recall > that he ever gave a reason. You would have to ask him. > > >>Jed could do it, if he were inclined. > > I offered. He refused. "Refused" hardly describes it. He went > ballistic and told me there would be dire consequences if I lifted a > finger to convert his papers to this format! God only knows why. > Frankly, I don't care why. > > His opposition to this format is even more mind-boggling in view of > the fact that he uploaded his own papers in text HTML. This whole > exchange now seems even more inexplicable and ludicrous. > > - Jed > >
