over the last few days, it has been interesting to watch the discussion
resulting from the hoax email and to consider whether an elegant algorithm
could, in fact, be considered "literature."  however, i feel compelled to
submit that this was not a question that preoccupied the .Net jury in our
deliberations this year.

the jury was looking for works that reflected a net aesthetic - derrick de
kerckove coined the term "webness" to describe this quality.   we thought
of this as work that is distributed, community-driven, evolutionary in
it's form and development, and that actually couldn't be created without
a network.  Using this criteria, Linux seemed to us to be an outstanding
example of what the net makes possible, and to be well deserving of the
prix.


_Lisa Goldman (really)

On Wed, 8 Sep 1999, David Garcia wrote:

> >it is probably a posthumous outrage that Einstein never _was_ awarded the
> >Nobel literature prize. In >hindsight he has been a crucial influence on
> >western literature ever since the publication of his relativity >theory.
> >Freud should have had one too, by the way...

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