discuss: [tbm@cyrius.com: Contacting mirrors with old HOWTOs?]
Subject:
Re: [tbm@cyrius.com: Contacting mirrors with old HOWTOs?]
From:
Tabatha Persad ####@####.####
Date:
11 Jan 2003 03:00:01 -0000
Message-Id: <1042254246.10199.38.camel@mysticchild.dbsoftware.com>
I believe there is something in place with the old LDP domain so that if
a user clicks on a link to an old LDP document, they receive a message
at the top indicating such. Perhaps this solution could be proposed to
mirrors.
Tab
On Fri, 2003-01-10 at 18:35, Colin Watson wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 10, 2003 at 10:41:20AM -0800, David Lawyer wrote:
> > On Fri, Jan 10, 2003 at 11:45:51AM +0000, Martin Michlmayr wrote:
> > > I used to maintain the Linux Consultants HOWTO (among other stuff).
> > > I gave it away in 1998 or so. Yet, when you google for
> > > "Linux Consultants HOWTO" "Martin Michlmayr" you will get _many_ hits.
> > > I remember when Greg was the coordinator of the LDP, he wanted to
> > > contact the sites which carry outdated HOWTOs and ask them to update
> > > or remove them. I think this never happened, however. Are there any
> > > plans to get this old cruft which is still on many mirrors purged?
> >
> > I looked into this in Jan.-Mar. 2001 for my Modem-HOWTO. David Merrill
> > even wrote it up for the LWN. I found several hundred sites that had stale
> > docs. It would be quite a project to try to fix this, and many would
> > likely not respond or never get emails sent to them. Even ones that
> > responded, might not bother to fix the problem. I came up with the
> > suggestion that licenses prohibit distributing stale copies unless they
> > are clearly labelled as such.
>
> That cure is blatantly non-free (consider the person who runs an old
> system with similarly old versions of the HOWTOs installed and happens
> to export /usr/share/doc via HTTP, or for that matter the Debian
> archive) and far worse than the disease. I rather doubt that Martin is
> interested in *suing* anyone - just wondering if anyone is looking into
> giving mirror sites a nudge.
>
> Cheers,
--
Tabatha Persad
Web: www.merlinmonroe.com
Linux Documentation Project Review Coordinator (http://www.tldp.org)
Gnu Writing Movement Contributor (http://gwm.gnu.org)
Linux Counter Area Manager US:wa (http://counter.li.org)
