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> rule number 1 of software: don't lose your user's data That doesn't scale to the scope of Gmail. The appropriate precautions to preserve old medical records

by thisrod 16y ago

> rule number 1 of software: don't lose your user's data That doesn't scale to the scope of Gmail. The appropriate precautions to preserve old medical records differ in kind from those appropriate for old shopping lists. I'd like my Google account to have a "Backup URL" field, that I could set to <git:tux.example.org> or <venti:glenda.example.com>. Google would undertake to push all "my" data to that URL, to pull it back as needed to recover their systems, and to publish the format it was stored in. I'd be responsible for the rest. Venti: http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/venti/venti.html http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/venti/venti.html or http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/venti/venti.pdf http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/venti/venti.pdf

jonknee 16y ago
You can have Gmail forward all your incoming mail (or even better, just the non-spam mail). Worst case you can then import that back into Gmail. I just have a copy kept on my computer and its various backups.
- thisrod 16y ago
  That works for my Gmail account. What about my HN posts? What if I don't have a reliable backup server of my own? Web 2.0 needs to abstract backup the way web 1.0 abstracted get and put. Venti does exactly that, and git might work too.
  - joeyh 16y ago
    Does an implementation of Venti exist? I'd bet on git. It has the mind-share already. Now, I can already run "webcheckout $url" and get a git repository for any of the websites I run, as well as all of the wikis and blogs of customers at my startup, Branchable.com. That is implemented via a proto-RFC called the "rel=vcs microformat", which simply adds a little data to web pages to indicate where the underlaying data can be cloned from. <http://kitenet.net/~joey/rfc/rel-vcs/&#62 http://kitenet.net/~joey/rfc/rel-vcs/>
    - enneff 16y ago
      > Does an implementation of Venti exist? Yes. http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sources/plan9/sys/src/cmd/venti/ http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sources/plan9/sys/src/cmd/venti/ http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sources/plan9/sys/src/libventi/ http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sources/plan9/sys/src/libventi/ And Fossil is a core piece, too: http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sources/plan9/sys/src/cmd/fossil/ http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sources/plan9/sys/src/cmd/fossil/

by thisrod 16y ago

jonknee 16y ago

You can have Gmail forward all your incoming mail (or even better, just the non-spam mail). Worst case you can then import that back into Gmail. I just have a copy kept on my computer and its various backups.

thisrod 16y ago
That works for my Gmail account. What about my HN posts? What if I don't have a reliable backup server of my own? Web 2.0 needs to abstract backup the way web 1.0 abstracted get and put. Venti does exactly that, and git might work too.
- joeyh 16y ago
  Does an implementation of Venti exist? I'd bet on git. It has the mind-share already. Now, I can already run "webcheckout $url" and get a git repository for any of the websites I run, as well as all of the wikis and blogs of customers at my startup, Branchable.com. That is implemented via a proto-RFC called the "rel=vcs microformat", which simply adds a little data to web pages to indicate where the underlaying data can be cloned from. <http://kitenet.net/~joey/rfc/rel-vcs/&#62 http://kitenet.net/~joey/rfc/rel-vcs/>
  - enneff 16y ago
    > Does an implementation of Venti exist? Yes. http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sources/plan9/sys/src/cmd/venti/ http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sources/plan9/sys/src/cmd/venti/ http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sources/plan9/sys/src/libventi/ http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sources/plan9/sys/src/libventi/ And Fossil is a core piece, too: http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sources/plan9/sys/src/cmd/fossil/ http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sources/plan9/sys/src/cmd/fossil/