5 Feb
2007
5 Feb
'07
2:10 p.m.
What do government and corporate data archives do?
Surely a long-lived company like IBM has already had
to deal with this
problem?
They deal with the problem by throwing things away. There are essentially
no corporate archives of software older than a few decades. This goes back
to the discussions here a while back about companies discarding software
after a product's life ends.
One of the things I've been disturbed to discover is CHM appears to be one
of the few institutions who are attempting to archive software.
Corporate archives today are essentially all paper or microform. Trying to
deal with digital content is not a solved problem there. If you look at the
literature, they are only thinking in terms of documents, not software, with
the exception of trying to preserve some subset of software needed for document
recovery.
5 Feb
5 Feb
2:40 p.m.
On 5 Feb 2007 at 11:10, Al Kossow wrote:
When it comes to business records, it's often to the firm's advantage
to strictly observe the "statute of limitations" rule and shred
everything after 7 years. Records older than 7 years can be
subpoenaed to demonstrate a pattern of behavior. Best not to have
the old stuff around.
Weyehauser runs a successful mobile operation here, where a large
tractor-trailer rig is a "we shred at your place of business"
operation. Yesterday's evidence becomes tomorrow's grocery bags.
Cheers,
Chuck
What do
government and corporate data archives do?
Surely a long-lived company like IBM has already
had to deal with this
problem?
They deal with the problem by throwing things away. There are essentially
no corporate archives of software older than a few decades. This goes back
to the discussions here a while back about companies discarding software
after a product's life ends. 
3:54 p.m.
One of the things I've been disturbed to discover
is CHM appears to be one
of the few institutions who are attempting to archive software.
CHM is a fairly unique institution, that is why. There are only a
handful of computer museums that are run like museums. Many "computer
museums" are just glorified users groups, informal circles of friends,
or just guys that like hoarding machines and docs.
--
Will
5:51 p.m.
On Feb 5, 2007, at 2:40 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
When it comes to business records, it's often to the firm's advantage
to strictly observe the "statute of limitations" rule and shred
everything after 7 years. Records older than 7 years can be
subpoenaed to demonstrate a pattern of behavior. Best not to have
the old stuff around.
Well, best for companies to BEHAVE THEMSELVES in the first place,
but I guess that won't be happening anytime soon, at least not in
America, Inc.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
What do government and corporate data archives do?
Surely a long-lived company like IBM has already
had to deal with
this
problem?
They deal with the problem by throwing things away. There are
essentially
no corporate archives of software older than a few decades. This
goes back
to the discussions here a while back about companies discarding
software
after a product's life ends. 
6:33 p.m.
In article <94FB4FEC-92BC-450B-912A-5292668C7A90 at neurotica.com>,
Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> writes:
Well, best for companies to BEHAVE THEMSELVES in
the first place,
but I guess that won't be happening anytime soon, at least not in
America, Inc.
Nor anywhere else that organizations are run by humans.
The honor system doesn't scale. That's why (unfortunately) we need cops.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
7:31 p.m.
> Well, best for companies to BEHAVE THEMSELVES
in the first place,
> but I guess that won't be happening anytime soon, at least not in
> America, Inc.
On Mon, 5 Feb 2007, Richard wrote:
Nor anywhere else that organizations are run by
humans.
The honor system doesn't scale. That's why (unfortunately) we need cops.
That's why some big companies have a "Chief Ethics Officer" coordinating
their espionage.
8 p.m.
On Feb 5, 2007, at 7:31 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
*cackle!*
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
> Well,
best for companies to BEHAVE THEMSELVES in the first place,
> but I guess that won't be happening anytime soon, at least not in
> America, Inc.
On Mon, 5 Feb 2007, Richard wrote:
Nor anywhere else that organizations are run by
humans.
The honor system doesn't scale. That's why (unfortunately) we
need cops.
That's why some big companies have a "Chief Ethics Officer"
coordinating
their espionage.
6381
days inactive
6382
days old
6 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
-
aek＠bitsavers.org -
cclist＠sydex.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
legalize＠xmission.com -
mcguire＠neurotica.com -
wdonzelli＠gmail.com