From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.6 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_INVALID,DKIM_SIGNED, HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS,MAILING_LIST_MULTI,T_SCC_BODY_TEXT_LINE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [50.116.15.146]) by inbox.vuxu.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2E48625850 for ; Thu, 14 Mar 2024 14:50:00 +0100 (CET) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 37CA442879; Thu, 14 Mar 2024 23:49:56 +1000 (AEST) Received: from outgoing.mit.edu (outgoing-auth-1.mit.edu [18.9.28.11]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 596EC4284E for ; Thu, 14 Mar 2024 23:49:50 +1000 (AEST) Received: from cwcc.thunk.org (pool-173-48-116-252.bstnma.fios.verizon.net [173.48.116.252]) (authenticated bits=0) (User authenticated as tytso@ATHENA.MIT.EDU) by outgoing.mit.edu (8.14.7/8.12.4) with ESMTP id 42EDnjki030968 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256 verify=NOT); Thu, 14 Mar 2024 09:49:46 -0400 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=mit.edu; s=outgoing; t=1710424187; bh=TaExeOxOVqH7/Gl/aHwX2CcYtXt9U/i45OMWZ2TGoS4=; h=Date:From:Subject:Message-ID:MIME-Version:Content-Type; b=REnEImuxcHMi/RxAtdJwgfVCPNj1hU93x8SWt/yTrZ0gEjEBgxlmBk94JD0GwLXhW kert9RjphztQezVY1dNvhfSKK+6cH65G0XszyIvp22v7SxPNXwhDm9OEDCHaAftiy6 A14nAKdzYgErFcqqtfmoHC89egoGK/HOsPjdcQO2s485X9kSI+q6flhIqJuWZdgGrF bfTZdsJ/VQt31T8GHWdwfkCMiHSSTj2JKrsU7Tko95aBi2f0Kz9zcYL22qaflFKypt Z+gxXL+kZZZ4coE28J2yhAllc8BwILnaSKslv1U/eTg3jChJhajwtL+yzWfN9Ab3xC kttdRgwoPItcw== Received: by cwcc.thunk.org (Postfix, from userid 15806) id 92EA015C0276; Thu, 14 Mar 2024 09:49:45 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2024 09:49:45 -0400 From: "Theodore Ts'o" To: Alexis Message-ID: <20240314134945.GC143836@mit.edu> References: <87h6h93e4q.fsf@gmail.com> <87zfv11w1u.fsf@gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <87zfv11w1u.fsf@gmail.com> Message-ID-Hash: NUKO73YFS7UPZX3RZRI7KHZB2VC2BMUM X-Message-ID-Hash: NUKO73YFS7UPZX3RZRI7KHZB2VC2BMUM X-MailFrom: tytso@mit.edu X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header CC: tuhs@tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: SunOS 4 in 2024 List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: On Thu, Mar 14, 2024 at 11:44:45AM +1100, Alexis wrote: > > i basically agree. i won't dwell on this too much further because i > recognise that i'm going off-topic, list-wise, but: > > i think part of the problem is related to different people having > different preferences around the interfaces they want/need for > discussions. What's happened is that - for reasons i feel are > typically due to a lock-in-oriented business model - many discussion > systems don't provide different interfaces/'views' to the same > underlying discussions. Which results in one community on platform X, > another community on platform Y, another community on platform Z > .... Whereas, for example, the 'Rocksolid Light' BBS/forum software > provides a Web-based interface to an underlying NNTP-based system, > such that people can use their NNTP clients to engage in forum > discussions. i wish this sort of approach was more common. This is a bit off-topic, and so if we need to push this to a different list (I'm not sure COFF is much better?), let's do so --- but this is a conversation which is super-improtant to have. If not just for Unix heritage, but for the heritage of other collecvtive systems-related projects, whether they be open source or proprietary. A few weeks ago, there were people who showed up on the git mailing list requesting that discussion of the git system move from the mailing list to using a "forge" web-based system, such as github or gitlab. Their reason was that there were tons of people who think e-mail is so 1970's, and that if we wanted to be more welcoming to the up-and-coming programmers, we should meet them were they were at. The obvious observations of how github was proprietary, and locking up our history there might be contra-indicated was made, and the problem with gitlab is that it doesn't have a good e-mail gateway, and while we might be disenfranchising the young'uns by not using some new-fangled web interface, disenfranchising the existing base of expertise was even worse idea. The best that we have today is lore.kernel.org, which is used by both the Linux Kernel and the git development communities. It uses public-inbox to archive the mailing list traffic, and it can be accessed via threaded e-mail interface, as well as via NNTP. There are also tools for subscribing to messages that match a filtering criteria, as well as tools for extracting patches plus code review sign-offs into a form that can be easily consumed by git. Of course none of this is a substitute for hiring a technical writer working with keye developers to create architecture documentation so that when a key developer retires (or gets hit by a bus) that critical knowledge doesn't get lost. This requires real investment, and while some communities might have a large corporate-funded foundation who might be able to fund that sort of thing, one of the things we've found is that there are real limits to the sort of documentation work that can be done by volunteers. (For example, right now the Linux kernel documentation maintainer is also the owner and editor for the Linux Weekly News, and Jon is keenly aware of the limits of what he can do in his copious spare time. And none of us is getting any younger....) So it's a real problem, and I think it's one that needs a lot more conversation, both within various open source projects, and perhaps between different projects to exchange some techniques for better preserving lore. After all, it would be great if we could make things easier for the next generation's *-Heritage-Society. :-) - Ted