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Permanent, until they go out of business. We should just standardize on archive.org and figure out a way to distribute redundant copies of its data around in su

Permanent, until they go out of business. We should just standardize on archive.org and figure out a way to distribute redundant copies of its data around in such a way that it can survive even if the original Internet Archive goes down. I hate to push blockchain stuff, but something like IPFS might actually be a good idea here.

pogue 2y ago
Archive.org has had it's fair share of problems recently as well. I'm still mad Google dropped their own cache and just expected the IA to pick up the slack. Having said that, there are a variety of different archives that Wikipedia uses for backups - Perma.cc is included on that list. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_web_archives_on_Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_web_archiv... There's also projects like Archive Box that allows for self hosted backups of websites https://archivebox.io/ https://archivebox.io/
didgeoridoo 2y ago
It’s run by the Harvard Law Library (i.e. backed by a multibillion-dollar university that is substantially older than the country it’s located in) and operated as a decentralized network across multiple public and private library systems. Like any service, it might shut down due to lack of interest, but I doubt Harvard Law is at risk of “going out of business”.
- palata 2y ago
  > I doubt Harvard Law is at risk of “going out of business”. Wait until they publicly criticise Musk.
  - Artemon 2y ago
    [dead]
- Andrew6rant 2y ago
  There honestly might be a greater chance of something happening to the .cc domain (like what's happening now with .io) Harvard has a much larger population than the Cocos islands, I don't know why this project decided to rely on a country code tld
  - basch 2y ago
    then the dns providers of the world step in and override it and redirect. hopefully cloudflare can save us.
- aaroninsf 2y ago
  Any discussion in this domain should include an overview of what happened to PURL and purl.org https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_uniform_resource_locator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_uniform_resource_lo... Regardless of institutional gravitas, projects without wide uptake are mostly doomed on a 20-year horizon.
  - weinzierl 2y ago
    I am glad I am not the only one who remembers that. Most of the time people mean package url when they use purl.
immibis 2y ago
IPFS is basically content-addressed HTTP, and it's really slow, and there's no way to discover all the stuff that needs to be redundantly archived (which makes sense because anyone can host anything).
andrewaylett 2y ago
Someone's still got to dedicate a chunk of their disk to retaining a copy, though. These folks send copies of all their archives to IA, so it's no less permanent than IA. And being focused on a specific niche (with deep-pocketed backers) means it's less likely to blow up for unrelated reasons.

pogue 2y ago

Archive.org has had it's fair share of problems recently as well. I'm still mad Google dropped their own cache and just expected the IA to pick up the slack. Having said that, there are a variety of different archives that Wikipedia uses for backups - Perma.cc is included on that list. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_web_archives_on_Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_web_archiv... There's also projects like Archive Box that allows for self hosted backups of websites https://archivebox.io/ https://archivebox.io/

didgeoridoo 2y ago

It’s run by the Harvard Law Library (i.e. backed by a multibillion-dollar university that is substantially older than the country it’s located in) and operated as a decentralized network across multiple public and private library systems. Like any service, it might shut down due to lack of interest, but I doubt Harvard Law is at risk of “going out of business”.

palata 2y ago
> I doubt Harvard Law is at risk of “going out of business”. Wait until they publicly criticise Musk.
- Artemon 2y ago
  [dead]
Andrew6rant 2y ago
There honestly might be a greater chance of something happening to the .cc domain (like what's happening now with .io) Harvard has a much larger population than the Cocos islands, I don't know why this project decided to rely on a country code tld
- basch 2y ago
  then the dns providers of the world step in and override it and redirect. hopefully cloudflare can save us.
aaroninsf 2y ago
Any discussion in this domain should include an overview of what happened to PURL and purl.org https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_uniform_resource_locator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_uniform_resource_lo... Regardless of institutional gravitas, projects without wide uptake are mostly doomed on a 20-year horizon.
- weinzierl 2y ago
  I am glad I am not the only one who remembers that. Most of the time people mean package url when they use purl.

immibis 2y ago

IPFS is basically content-addressed HTTP, and it's really slow, and there's no way to discover all the stuff that needs to be redundantly archived (which makes sense because anyone can host anything).

andrewaylett 2y ago

Someone's still got to dedicate a chunk of their disk to retaining a copy, though. These folks send copies of all their archives to IA, so it's no less permanent than IA. And being focused on a specific niche (with deep-pocketed backers) means it's less likely to blow up for unrelated reasons.