What is the Xanadu system?
In 1960, Ted Nelson founded a hypertext project named after the legendary place Xanadu. The idea was to create a so-called Docuverse, i.e. a library that links all kinds of documents together.
The hypertext concept, with which content from any object can be integrated into a document, is very complex. For example, a so-called transclusion mechanism is provided. For Xanadu, however, not only the digital library was planned, but also a billing model. This was similar to the new versions, namely micropayment.
Implementation of the Xanadu system
The Xanadu system failed due to its extreme complexity. It was never completed and to this day only prototypes exist. The inventor Ted Nelson was not technically gifted enough to complete the system on his own, as he himself studied philosophy at Harvard University.
Autodesk took over 80% of XOC in 1988. Nelson continued to work on his Xanadu system there until 1992. In 1998, the project was handed over to Keio University and continued in Japan. Among other things, Ted Nelson developed the so-called ZigZag data structure there, which served as the basis for his work. It was finally decided that the source code should no longer run under the name Xanadu, but under the name Udanax. Some of the software, which was programmed in a Smalltalk dialect, was imported into Java as part of David Jones’ Abora project. At Keio University, Andrew David Pam joined the project and still manages the latest development versions of Xanadu.
What is the concept behind the Xanadu system?
Like the Word Wide Web, Xanadu was intended as a decentralized storage system for various documents. Every document in the Nelson hypertext space should have an absolutely unique address, regardless of where it is stored. Individual characters should be addressable from a different location within the document. Nelson imagined the documents as entries in a global database that could no longer be deleted. It should therefore also be possible to publish new versions. However, the old versions are retained during this process. However, there is a simple way to find out which version is currently available.
What are the consequences?
Ted Nelson’s conceptual idea for Xanadu influenced many other projects:
- Development of the Word Wide Web (by Tim Berners-Lee)
- Wiki concept (by Ward Cunningham)
- All implementations of the hypertext concept consist of a part of the Xanadu system
Points of criticism
Nelson was one of the first to look for solutions to digital remuneration problems in the early digital age. As a result, the quotations, which can be updated automatically, are to be remunerated. In this way, they are checked for authenticity and the author is paid in the background, without much effort.
“I would like to live in a world where there is no copyright.” This is a statement by Ted Nelson. According to this, he designed his alternative model of copyright, namely “transcopyright”. This is especially designed to enable users to transfer small contributions to each other economically. So Nelson’s idea was to keep the documents in Xanadu so cheap that its payment is not even considered.