Re: Building An Apple ][ Software Archive

["John King, Jr." <joki@eskimo.com>]

Something like that would be very useful to Apple newbies, like myself.
Also, I would like a user rating, or something else, to know if the software
was well regarded.


"Byron Q. Desnoyers Winmill" <wbdesnoy@ucalgary.ca> wrote in message
news:7izx5.5013$m8.924731@news1.telusplanet.net...
> While not a software archive per say, creating a catalogue of known
> Apple II software might be useful.  Such an archive could include the
> name of the software, the copyright date and owner, distribution media,
> intended platform (ie. model) and system requirements, operating system,
> disk catalogue, and some form of checksum.  A description of the
> software, and whether there are any known derivatives (ie. is the
trademark
> still valuable) could also be significant.
>
> What would this catalogue allow us to do?  It would allow us to preserve
> the past, before all known copies are destroyed.  If there is a large
> volume of "discarded" software (ie. the version nor concept no longer hold
> any commercial value), it may form a case for software copyright reform.
> It would allow owners to check the integrity of their copies against other
> known copies.  It would form the basis of physical collections, so that
> interesting/significant software can be preserved.  It could also serve as
> a starting point for those who want to ask authors to release software
into
> the public domain.
>
> Well, it is just an idea.  And it is an idea which ought to be safe from
> the piracy police . . . and the pirates.
>
> Byron.
>
> lowlife2270@my-deja.com wrote:
> > I've been reading, both with interest and concern, about the entrenched
> > views regarding software piracy and software archival (and its
> > associated retrieval). Clearly, people have issues with how this has
> > been happening in the past (the Asimov topic would be an obvious way to
> > prove this).
>
> > I propose that we build a software archive. One in which access is
> > controlled. One in which those that post material can ensure that they
> > can access their own material again. One which shows all the skills
> > which the Apple ][ series fostered in the community (and yes, that
> > includes the cracking of software titles). I could get into more
> > details than this, but I don't know that they would be overly useful at
> > this point. Suffice to say that there would be a cute web-based
> > interface to the system, and people could browse through a listing of
> > the current contents of the archive. I have several years' experience
> > of doing this kind of work, and I'd be more than happy to apply that
> > knowledge to something constructive like this. I'm not in it for the
> > money (or the disk images).
>