>*]Mmm ... I don't know.  I will grant you that anyone with access and net
>*]savvy can get the information for free.
>
>    That is not correct, Sir. Greendisks compiled information is
>    available *only* to their subscribers. A VERONICA search will
>    show what information they release into INTERNET/BITNET: Just
>    announcements of contents and a "Pay-if-you-want-it" philosophy.
 
Forgive me, I've obviously expressed myself clumsily.  I did not say that
one can access GreenDisk for free.  I was agreeing with you that one can
access the information on the Internet for free.
 
You appear to feel, however, that information for which one has not paid
cannot be honourably sold.  There, we part company -- that is done all the
time, and quite, quite honourably.  I do not know the bona fides of the
specific firm in question, and thus cannot address the specific case, but
the principle of what I wrote, and write now, I still hold.
 
My analogy would be the work of a scholar who has used a public library for
his researches.  Anyone who goes to the trouble to follow his example can
also get what he presents in his subsequent book ... absolutely free (save
for having paid taxes towards maintaining this library, but that is not
quite the issue -- in any case, the Internet itself is not free, either:
providers are paid for the connections they offer, and institutions are
paying Eric Thomas for listservs to distribute e-mail messages).
 
Or take the various bibliographical indexes: L'Annee Philologique, or PAIS,
any of the ones put out by Wilson and similar companies.  Again, you can go
to various sources and get the material for yourself, without paying, if
you are willing to go through issue after issue and library after library
to gather all the citations.
 
What the customer pays for is not the information, as such.
 
What (s)he pays for is the work that the compilers, be it bibliographers or
indexers or individual scholars, go to to gather the information and
present it in an accurate, easily usable, and centralized source.
Information may be free, but research is not -- man-hours, equipment and
material costs, salaries perhaps ...
 
>    This is unethical and wrong, Sir because people cooperate in
>    good will and they find that the information is not released
>    unless you pay.
 
Then, again by analogy, a librarian should refuse to help a scholar
because, unless said scholar donates a copy of his book, the library will
have to pay for the information gathered from material in that very
library.
 
>    There are "armies" of environmental "crusaders" (mostly US based)
>    and "go-for-the-buck" small environment related small
 
That is as may be.  I do not argue with you on this point, merely on the
principle you appear to espouse (have I misunderstood?), that it is
dishonourable to disseminate for pay information that can be gathered
freely.  It can be, under some circumstances.  It is not necessarily so.
 
>    Also, I do believe that if a project is worthwhile,
>    it will be supported by a government or academic
>    institution, like for instance FISH-ECOLOGY and FISH-JUNIOR,
>    NIA-NET, ECOLOG-L and many others are.
 
Private companies can and do provide worthy information in the form of
indexes and bibliographies.  Again, I cite H. W. Wilson, which produces the
Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature and the Social Sciences Index.
 
>        Aldo-Pier Solari (Listowner FISH-ECOLOGY, FISH-JUNIOR).
 
Mario Rups
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