3 ms·

Some of the sibling answers focus on the data format -- e.g. plain HTML etc. But I believe you're actually asking about durable institutions of people without

by jasode 4y ago

Some of the sibling answers focus on the data format -- e.g. plain HTML etc. But I believe you're actually asking about durable institutions of people without realizing it: >(i.e. a website that will stay up for 30 years after the author passes away) Having a server stay up for 30 years is about hardware constantly staying on with electricity and ongoing maintenance (e.g. replace dying harddrives). This also means domain name registrations being renewed ... which is another people process. Many domains registrars only offer max 10-year limits. Some have 45-year terms but such long timelines kicks the question back to people because you have to trust the registrar to be still be around and not go bankrupt. Consider your example of "http://info.cern.ch/ http://info.cern.ch/" -- That's the CERN institution with people & money to maintain the computers to serve those old webpages. To eliminate most of the "people problem"... you can re-frame the problem to be, "How to make the data between <HTML></HTML> as durable as possible without domain registrars and specific computers?" This means looking at things like embedding the data into IPFS, Bitcoin blockchain, or have it copied by archive.is or The Wayback Machine. This converts your problem from a "institution issue" into more of a "crowdsourced viral data replication issue".

mooreds 4y ago
That's a great point about the domain registration. So if you want to have a standalone website (not use IPFS, etc), then you are really looking at setting up an organization to perpetuate your website. Such organizations, which exist past the lifetime of the founder, are self-perpetuating, and have missions, are well-known technology. They are called foundations. Setting up a foundation to keep a website running feels like using a sledgehammer to kill a mosquito, but I suppose the long term value of a website does depend on the data it is conveying.

by jasode 4y ago

mooreds 4y ago

That's a great point about the domain registration. So if you want to have a standalone website (not use IPFS, etc), then you are really looking at setting up an organization to perpetuate your website. Such organizations, which exist past the lifetime of the founder, are self-perpetuating, and have missions, are well-known technology. They are called foundations. Setting up a foundation to keep a website running feels like using a sledgehammer to kill a mosquito, but I suppose the long term value of a website does depend on the data it is conveying.