ricky said:
>   Tell me a bit more about the "canonical paginations".
>   I suspect that in the long-run, there will be less needs
>   of different versions, and we will only need a handful
>   version of 'pride and prejudice' so we can all
>   reference to it and deep link into it.

any pagination _can_ be "a canonical pagination" _if_
enough people agree to use it, and dialog around it...

those different editions of "pride and prejudice" from
the 1800s have stood the test of time, and they are now
easy to point to, thanks to google, so they will certainly
qualify as "canonical paginations", without any doubt...

in the same way, different _editions_ of today's books
will qualify too, if the author/publisher decides to bear
the burden of mounting a "permanent version" online...

being able to _link_ to a version, and _view_ it, and to
_know_ with great _certainty_ that other people will be
able to see the exact same thing is the crucial aspect...

lots of people are now under some very strange illusions
that books will be permanently "in flux" because we'll be
constantly "updating" them.  that is a recipe for disaster.

even though you _could_ conceivably save every version,
no one version will be able to muster a "critical mass" of
people who're willing to make reference to it consistently.

once we realize we can't build anything on shifting sands,
we'll smarten up to a series of "editions" that is much akin
to those paper-based "editions" we are well familiar with...

all of this is just good old common sense.  it's not difficult.

-bowerbird