On Tue, 21 Sep 2010, Justin P. Mattock wrote:
On 09/20/2010 10:17 PM, Finn Thain wrote:
I would say that if a URL is in the web archive, then no patch is needed.
Finn
before I go and remove all of the archive.org stuff, can I get some feedback
from other people as well on having this used? i.e. if keeping the old broken
link in the kernel, how will people know to go to archive.org or any other
archive site to read the old info?, as opposed to already having this in there
so people can just click and go?..
The idea to use archive.org came from this thread:
http://amailbox.org/mailarchive/linux-kernel/2010/7/21/4596207/thread
where there are people still wanting to read the old info.
If people want to read the old links, and they don't know about
archive.org, then they should. If you've seen one
"http://web.archive.org/web/*/foo/bar", you've seen them all. So this is
bloat in some sense.
As the web matures, and more and more information disappears from the web,
archive.org will become common knowledge (if it isn't already).
Applying your reasoning that "people are still wanting to read the old
info", a policy to accept patches like:
- http://foo/bar
+ http://web.archive.org/web/*/foo/bar
would imply another continual stream of patches when the domain foo
changes hands. Then you have to pach,
- http://web.archive.org/web/*/foo/bar
+ http://web.archive.org/web/YYYYMMDDHHMMSS/foo/bar
Then the problem becomes what is the correct YYYYMMMDDHHMMSS? The one
closest to the datestamp of submission of the patch? Or the datestamp from
the email that submitted the patch? When these questions arise, it becomes
a new burden on maintainers to determine the right version of the web page
in the archive, and whether or not the latest version is the best one.
So both of these (arguably) continuous streams of patches would become a
burden on maintainers and offer little or no benefit to those reading the
source code.
The benefit to end users is also dubious, because you're chasing web pages
that were abandoned, implying low value in the first place.
Though they move from one URL to another, the links that are valuable are
the web pages that are regularly updated. These are are the links that
need to be kept up-to-date. And I think your work in that direction is
valuable.
Thanks.
Finn