Future Direction for PUPS and UHS

From: Warren Toomey < wkt@cs.adfa.edu.au>
Message-Id: <200006010025.KAA49471@henry.cs.adfa.edu.au>
Subject: Future Direction for PUPS and UHS
To: pups@minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (Unix Heritage Society)
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2000 10:25:34 +1000 (EST)
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All,
	A discussion has started up on the PUPS volunteers list about the
future direction we should take in terms of the PUPS Archive.

For those people new to this list, here's a bit of background. Originally
I set up the PDP-11 UNIX Preservation Society, the mailing list and the
Archive as that was my interest.

Since then, we've attracted people with interests in other Unixes, such
as the 4BSDs, and other hardware platforms such as the Vax, the 68k Suns
etc.

A while back, I changed the charter of the mailing list to encompass any
Unix-related questions, epecially to those systems which are now treated
as `ancient' by the mainstream, even if they are being maintained (e.g
2.11BSD and the Quasijarus project).

I also tried to create an umbrella organisation, the Unix Heritage Society
(http://minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au/TUHS/), which would allow a number of groups
like PUPS and Quasijarus to form, and so that we could co-ordinate their
efforts. I must admit I haven't put much effort into this idea.

Now, the PUPS Archive (PUPS in name, but it contains lots more than PDP-11
stuff) is accumulating more and more stuff. Some people want to see a
mainly PDP-11 archive, other want to try and archive everything before it
goes off to /dev/null.

So, I want to survey the mailing list here for ideas about the charter of
the Unix Heritage Society, and a way of setting up one or multiple archives,
mailing lists, web pages etc. as I originally envisioned.

Questions:
	- should we keep one archive, or have multiple archives?

	- if one, what structure (divisions on platforms, on vendors etc.)

	- if you have a keen interest in one platform/system, would you
	  consider becoming the leader of an interest group that could
	  sit under the Unix Heritage Society umbrella?

	- do you want to set up and maintain a more specific archive,
	  mailing list, web site, that the Unix Heritage Society could
	  point to?

	- do you want this current mailing list to stay ``all-encompassing'',
	  or would you rather have more specific lists?

One final comment before you answer. There's a very diverse bunch of
people on this mailing list, some with strong opinions. Please be prepared
to accept someone's comments as what they want, don't tell them that they
are wrong, but let us know what you'd like to see.

Many thanks,
	Warren

[ now stands back for the deluge! ]

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From: Warren Toomey < wkt@cs.adfa.edu.au>
Message-Id: <200006030158.LAA08504@henry.cs.adfa.edu.au>
Subject: Warren's Position on Future of PUPS/TUHS
To: pups@minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (Unix Heritage Society)
Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2000 11:58:50 +1000 (EST)
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Hi all,
	Well I've had a few comments back from people about the future of
things on the PUPS & TUHS front. I've sat down & knocked up a short
proposal which I'd be happy with. The overarching goal is to give everybody
what they want :-) Anyway, send me comments and suggestions, or plain old
disagreements!

Thanks,
	Warren


	A Discussion Paper on The Future of PUPS, TUHS and the Archive
	==============================================================

Policy
------

The PDP-11 Unix Preservation Society (PUPS) goes back to being a group
specifically focussed on the versions of Unix for the PDP-11 platform.

The Unix Heritage Society (TUHS) will be an umbrella group to support
efforts to preserve or maintain all versions of Unix that are no longer
considered to be mainstream. The type of support is outlined below.

Mechanism
---------

The pups@minnie mailing list will remain an ``all-encompassing'' mailing
list for those people who are active in, or interested in, the aims of the
Unix Heritage Society. It will be renamed to be tuhs@minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au
If enough people request it, a PUPS-specific mailing list will be set up.

As part of TUHS aim of support, mailing lists on minnie can be set up
for those groups who wish to come under the TUHS umbrella. One or more
people from each group will be the list maintainer.

If the information is not huge, minnie can offer web space for these
groups, too. I'm already doing this for the Quasijarus project.

The PUPS Archive will be renamed `The Unix Heritage Archive'. The top-level
will contain files & information that is generic. There will be sublevels
in the form platform/vendor/version. We might need some other categories
for multi-platform systems like the 4BSDs. As an example, nearly all of the
current archive will move under a PDP-11/ directory. But directories like
Applications/ and Lists/ will stay where they are.

If possible and where there are volunteers, each section of the archive
will be maintained by its own maintainer. Minnie will provide disk space
for all sections, so that there is a `one-stop' place to keep things.
However, some groups may want to maintain a separate archive & existence.
In this case, TUHS will set up pointers to their efforts.


Volunteers & Mirrors
--------------------

Some of the existing volunteers and archive mirror maintainers may not
wish to maintain a copy of the full TUHS archive. That's their perogative.
In fact, it might be useful to `name' each section of the full archive.
For example, someone might only want to mirror the VAX section. Perhaps
this can be called the VAX Unix Archive.

I can modify the mechanism of ordering archive copies so that:

	+ specific volunteers can nominate which archive sections they carry
	+ requesters can order specific sections, or all, and find out how
	  big each section is
	+ requests will only be sent to those volunteers who can do them


Copyright & License Issues
--------------------------

At present, most things in the archive are protected by licenses and/or
copyright. This probably isn't going to change soon. The current mechanisms
to ensure access by license holders will be preserved.

Given the aims of TUHS, I am prepared to keep in the archive anything that
is Unix-related for antiquated or non-mainstream systems. We may not
be able to release some of this due to license or copyright reasons. In
that case, it will be kept hidden away in the archive until it can be
released. It won't be mirrored or be available for copying in any way
until that time.

A Personal Note
---------------

I'd like to maintain the PDP-11 archive, and initially do the TUHS stuff
(including web pages, mailing lists, top-level of the archive). I'll set
up platform-specific (or other-specific) levels as long as there is someone
who will volunteer to maintain that area, and any web pages and mailing
lists associated with them.

It would also be a good idea to have an understudy or two in the wings,
just in case I get hit by a bus or something.

Conclusion
----------

I'm sure there are other issues (especially implementation ones) that
I've missed above, but hopefully you get the general idea of my proposal
for future direction of PUPS and TUHS.

Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 11:49:12 -0700
From: Greg Lehey < grog@lemis.com>
To: Warren Toomey < wkt@cs.adfa.edu.au>
Cc: Unix Heritage Society < pups@minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au>
Subject: Re: Future Direction for PUPS and UHS
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On Thursday,  1 June 2000 at 10:25:34 +1000, Warren Toomey wrote:
> All,
> 	A discussion has started up on the PUPS volunteers list about the
> future direction we should take in terms of the PUPS Archive.
>
> For those people new to this list, here's a bit of background. Originally
> I set up the PDP-11 UNIX Preservation Society, the mailing list and the
> Archive as that was my interest.
>
> Since then, we've attracted people with interests in other Unixes, such
> as the 4BSDs, and other hardware platforms such as the Vax, the 68k Suns
> etc.
>
> A while back, I changed the charter of the mailing list to encompass any
> Unix-related questions, epecially to those systems which are now treated
> as `ancient' by the mainstream, even if they are being maintained (e.g
> 2.11BSD and the Quasijarus project).
>
> I also tried to create an umbrella organisation, the Unix Heritage Society
> (http://minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au/TUHS/), which would allow a number of groups
> like PUPS and Quasijarus to form, and so that we could co-ordinate their
> efforts. I must admit I haven't put much effort into this idea.
>
> Now, the PUPS Archive (PUPS in name, but it contains lots more than PDP-11
> stuff) is accumulating more and more stuff. Some people want to see a
> mainly PDP-11 archive, other want to try and archive everything before it
> goes off to /dev/null.
>
> So, I want to survey the mailing list here for ideas about the charter of
> the Unix Heritage Society, and a way of setting up one or multiple archives,
> mailing lists, web pages etc. as I originally envisioned.
>
> Questions:
> 	- should we keep one archive, or have multiple archives?

I don't really think it makes any difference.  Structure one archive
well, and you can get the individual platform archives simply by going
down a directory level.  The problem is, of course, that some software
can be relevant to multiple platforms.

> 	- if one, what structure (divisions on platforms, on vendors etc.)

I'd be inclined to go for the hardware platform, but I haven't thought
it through.  Ultimately it would probably depend on the nature of the
software that came in.

> 	- if you have a keen interest in one platform/system, would you
> 	  consider becoming the leader of an interest group that could
> 	  sit under the Unix Heritage Society umbrella?

No, I don't think so.  But you might be able to twist my arm.

> 	- do you want to set up and maintain a more specific archive,
> 	  mailing list, web site, that the Unix Heritage Society could
> 	  point to?

No.

> 	- do you want this current mailing list to stay ``all-encompassing'',
> 	  or would you rather have more specific lists?

Personally I'd like it to be all-encompassing, but then, it's only a
small part of the 1000 messages I get per day, and it's easy to delete
messages I don't want to read.

> [ now stands back for the deluge! ]

That really happened, didn't it?

Greg
--
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