Subject: Re: [dnsext] Ancient list archives

From: Alfred Hönes <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:44:33 +0100 (MEZ)

[[ With respect to the general nature of the topic, I copy selected
   IETF administrative leadership: the IAD and the IAB Executive
   director. ]]

At Thu, 21 Jan 2010 07:08:25 -0500, William Allen Simpson wrote:
> Andrew Sullivan wrote:
>
>    If anyone has access to pre-1990 archives of this (namedroppers)
>    list, I bet such people's observations in the thread including
>    the message [...]
>
> Sadly, I had a lot, but they were all printed on paper.  I was weary
> of paying $180/month for a storage unit for my paper archives, and
> recycled almost everything last April, including TCP and IP papers
> from the late 1970s, figuring I'd never look at them again.  Sorry.

Really sad.

As a general wisdom -- not particular to Internet history -- :

If you are in possession of material of potential interest for
(current and future) historians, ensure that the material is
conserved.

If you have no other trustworthy possibility to ensure that, offer
to donate the material to a competent public archive or library
(library of a university, national library, the Library of Congress
in the U.S., etc.).  As a surplus, offer helping them to properly
catalogue the material to make it more easily accessible.
Do that immediately if you want to get rid of the material (e.g.
for similar reasons as pointed out above), and in any case, as a
precautionary measure, lay down testamentary disposition to make
the donation happen when you pass by (get in contact with them in
advance to ensure you find a proper institution!).

We should not ignore that the latter will become even more important
in the future, with the Internet starting to survive its veterans
and early documentation activists.

AFAIK, the RFC Editor also has maintained a paper archive in the
past.  I do not know about the extent of that archive, its fate,
and future plans with the RFC 5620 institutions.  And does ICANN
support such archival activities?

Kind regards,
  Alfred Hönes.

-- 

+------------------------+--------------------------------------------+
| TR-Sys Alfred Hoenes   |  Alfred Hoenes   Dipl.-Math., Dipl.-Phys.  |
| Gerlinger Strasse 12   |  Phone: (+49)7156/9635-0, Fax: -18         |
| D-71254  Ditzingen     |  E-Mail:  [email-masked]                     |
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---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:00:56 -0500

[ Moderators note: Post was moderated, either because it was posted by
   a non-subscriber, or because it was over 20K.  
   With the massive amount of spam, it is easy to miss and therefore 
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   Please fix your subscription addresses. ]

On Jan 21, 2010, at 10:07 AM, Ray Pelletier wrote:

>
> On Jan 21, 2010, at 9:44 AM, Alfred HÎnes wrote:
>
> One should also consider the IETF Trust, or at least make the Trustees
> aware of the existence of such material.

The Trust is in the process of taking possession of the RFC Editor  
physical (paper) archives, which are
at last report still at ISI in California.

We plan to keep it all in storage, either in California or here in  
Virginia with the other physical Trust archives.

While the Trust archives can be and are accessed, they are at present  
not intended for routine access, simply for long-term storage.

Regards
Marshall

>
> Ray
> Trustee
>
>>
>> Kind regards,
>> Alfred HÎnes.
>>
>> -- 
>> +------------------------ 
>> +--------------------------------------------+
>> +------------------------ 
>> +--------------------------------------------+
>>
>
>

---

From: Ray Pelletier <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:07:43 -0500

Ray
Trustee

---

From: Olafur Gudmundsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:28:29 -0500

Full archive of namedroppers is available see:

>Randy Bush randy at psg.com
>Wed Jan 20 15:21:05 PST 2010
>
>Previous message: [ih] Dot Com etc
>Next message: [ih] internet-history Digest, Vol 39, Issue 7
>Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]
> > The namedroppers list still exists (used for DNS policy issues).
> > However no one seems to have an archive earlier than 1990 (MARC.INFO).
>
>ftp://ftp.psg.com/pub/lists goes back to '83
>
>randy

>(current and future) historians, ensure that the material is

As a amateur historian I also keep a full archive of namedroppers
and few other relevant mailing list.
IETF archives all mailing list but the namedroppers archive only goes
back to 2002.
ftp://ftp.ietf.org/ietf-mail-archive/namedroppers/

Both "official" archives have had outages during at some point
meaning that some messages have been dropped, thus it is wise to
consult both when looking for a particular message.
I try to back fill the psg archive when this has happened but there is out-age
from last year that I have not got around to fixing.

         Olafur