>Date: Sat, 14 Dec 1996 08:54:14 -0500 (EST)
>From: Steve Barber <sbarber@echonyc.com>
>Subject: Archiving
>
>Folks --
>
>I think when you vilify Brewster Kahle, you are going after the wrong
>person. In about twenty years, all of us -- except for the usual
>mean-spirited cranks -- are going to be ecstatic that the archives
>he's been instigating exist at all. Losing the history of the Internet
>would be a bad thing.
>
>So far, unless I've missed something big, he's stated over and over
>again, and very publicly, that the archives he's putting together are
>reserved for historical and scholarly purposes.
Thank you Steve, for your measured comments. I would like to be clear on
what we are doing.
For mailing lists, if they are donated, we will keep the bits from decaying
and offer for scholarly use (unless we don't think it is right to for legal
or social reasons). Mailing lists fall into a zone that is tricky for all
the reasons pointed out on this list.
For web contents, we hope to make useful services as well as keep the bits
from decaying. Tricky, but different, issues live in that area as well.
The issue of this debate has been on the mailing list side, and I just
wanted to make sure people understood what we are doing. (there was a
similar discussion on the robots mailing list a couple of months ago about
the web side).
-brewster
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