chris2001 - 2:37 pm on Nov 30, 2006 (gmt 0)

> Basic questions:

> 1. Who actually has physical control and physical access to the editorial server? If not ODP volunteers then who?

> 3. Who is actually writing or re-writing the editorial server code and determining configurations, etc.? The volunteers or someone on the corporate side?

AOL/ODP staff only.

> 2. Is the ODP not a public service or charitable work of Netscape/AOL? If so then isn't the issue of "it's not profitable" a non-sequitor? Corporations don't support "the arts" or a school or a kid's camp to make a profit. They support an endeavor as an act of public citizenship.

In my opinion, it is very much an act of public citizenship, yes, of course - see [dmoz.org...]

The suggestions above who could possibly profit of ODP (beyond the searchers who use either dmoz.org or one of the many search applications that make use of ODP data, naturally) are rather focusing on profits for webmasters and Google. Commercial profits of specific entities, that is, which makes it difficult to understand why there might be real public interest.
Having a look at
[dmoz.org...] and
[dmoz.org...]
might help to broaden the perspective. ODP data are frequently and strongly used by developers of new search applications and computer scientists working on Search-related issues - which means that indirectly, everybody who has an interest in the future of Search has an interest in maintenance and further development of ODP.