xml-dev - LISTADMIN: Archiving the XML discussions

["Rzepa, Henry" <h.rzepa@ic.ac.uk>]

Dear all,

This message is both to inform (actually remind) and to seek volunteers.

As part of my "chemical" hat, we are publishing via Imperial College Press
(ISBN 981-02-3594-1 ) the proceedings of the ECHET98 
conference on CD ROM shortly. 

With about 400 Mbytes of free space on the CD, the opportunity arises to 
archive eg the XML-DEV discussions for  "posterity"  by including
the hypermail archive on the  CD (the costs of producing an  XML-only
CD ROM would be around  $1500, and as the list has no funding source
of its own, this would currently not be possible).  Having watched
several of the  original  HTML dicsussion lists apparently "evaporate"
during  1994,  I feel that the  XML-LIST, which has generated some
6000 contributions during some  20 months of operation, is worthy
of preserving as an archive of the development of the subject over
this period. 

My intention is simply to include the  raw (in fact, very raw)
HTML documents that comprise the archive on the  CD ROM,
with my editing being limited to removing the duplicate footers,
and deleting any obviously offensive messages (there have been
very few spams as such). Can I ask the list therefore to

a) inform me of any messages that might risk crossing the
boundary of acceptability. Clearly, with  6000 to scan, its
an interesting task. I set it as a challenge to the XML 
community!  I do not intend to remove all LISTADMIN messages,
since that is part of the list process, but there may be a small number
that do need removing.  

b) I ask for volunteers to eg convert the 6000 HTML documents
to a richer XML-based form. I have very little time over the
next two months to spend on this, so  will have to rely on volunteers.
I can provide a tar archive of the list.  For this purpose,  I intend
making the archive final as of 28 August (to allow the inclusion
of any response to this posting). One prepared today is available at
http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/ectoc/echet98/email/xml-dev-2008.tar.gz
(5.4 M) Anyone wishing to return "processed" material could do so via
ftp://ftp.ch.ic.ac.uk/ in directory incoming (not working just
yet, but soon will be)
Obviously, platform independent tools such as Java could be 
included on the CD ROM. We are also probably be indexing the
HTML documents using http://www.jobjects.com/  This is
a fairly simple "low-structure" index engine. If anyone has
other suggestions, they are most welcome. 

The default action is obviously that nothing from  b) is included.
I hope the final  CD ROM might be "burnt" around the end of
September. Copies (up to 10 ) will be available  free of charge
to anyone who contributes to the above task. Otherwise,  copies
will be available from  IC Press for a fairly nominal amount
(probably around $30). 

Dr Henry Rzepa,  Dept. Chemistry,  Imperial College,  LONDON SW7 2AY;
mailto:rzepa@ic.ac.uk; Tel  (44) 171 594 5774; Fax: (44) 171 594 5804.
URL: http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/rzepa/ 

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