19 Mar
2007
19 Mar
'07
3:21 p.m.
dave06a at dunfield.com wrote:
Can't resist a chance to climb up on my facvorite soapbox - much more important
than the tools, is details and docuemtnation on the archive format.
Oh, I'm right with you there (it's one of my favourites too ;)
Which actually leads to a related question: do we need a resource documenting
media formats? *file* formats seem to be pretty well covered on the 'net, but
I've not seen anywhere really documenting how floppies, tapes etc. for old
systems are laid out. I'm not really talking about at the filesystem level
either, but lower than that at the raw data stream level.
Doing so would certainly seem a useful resource for anyone wanting to help
contribute to the software repository (in terms or what media they're able to
help archive)
(I think someone else asked the same question on here a month or two back - in
which case apologies for not speaking up and saying that it seemed like a good
idea)
Yep, you're right... I was just (badly) saying that I think it's easy to muddy
the waters between tool maintainer and archive maintainer.
Absolutely. I was just pointing out that it's possible to go overboard - as an
example, if it were to take someone 30 minutes to fill in the metadata for a
single floppy disk image then I suspect the temptation will be there for
people not to bother participating in the repository.
So there is such a thing as "too much". So for any class of data
(documentation, floppy image, tape image, archival tool etc. etc.) it just
needs careful consideration at design time as to what metadata is important
and needs to be mandatory.
These readme's may need updating as time goes by.
Things like the fact
that some tool needs to run under a particular OS and not some future OS
that may be more common, needs to be passed on.
Is that not a problem for
whoever's maintaining the tools? They're the ones
who dictate what platforms their tools will run on - it's not necessarily the
job of the archive maintainers to know this; they simply record what tool (and
hence what file format) was used to create their images. The burden's on the
individual users to search for something that will understand that format, and
then filter out results to get something that will work with their particular
hardware combination. e.g. I might
have a site with a bunch of Superbrain floppies on, all in
Imagedisk format. It's my job as maintainer of that archive (and participating
in the "global" distributed archive) to say what tool I used to create those
images when I publish them - but it's Dave's job as Imagedisk maintainer to
dictate what other platforms Imagedisk might run on now or in the future.
I think "dictate" is a string word - If someone wants to develop the tool for
another platform, I would be very supportive - however this hasn't happened
so far. The sites should carry what tools and documentation
can be made available
(ultimately ability to access the archived data will deternine it's acceptance).
I don't think they *have* to though. It's logical for them to do so certainly,
but but for the purposes of searching / mirroring / storage the tools can be
treated purely as items of data - the critical thing (again) is widespread
availability in sufficient numbers, not where the tools available for download
happen to be located. But any road, it's all just semantics :-)
Indeed - and
it's easy to say "record as much as possible". Problem then is
that it discourages archive owners from publishing content simply because it's
time-consuming to enter the metadata for the items that they're making
available. Getting the balance right is probably going to be tricky.
I'm not sure I agree with that. You don't need much metadata to be 1000%
more useful than none. I would not expect complete documentation on the
tool and archive formats to be included in each data image - but the type
of system it is for, the name and version of the tool, and a description of
what is in the image should be enough to get you going. People pay $$$ for a CD that comes in an empty box
with a little paper
saying "This is XXX put the CD in your drive" - surely we can do at least
as good as that.
Oh, we can do a lot better :) It's just a case of reaching some happy medium
that captures as much useful metadata as possible but doesn't put people off
from adding content in the first place.
cheers
Jules