Hobbes Retirement

[Martin Iturbide]

Hello Roderick

Nathan is doing a good progress with the replacement development, he has the filesearch links, search inside the "long description" text and other fixes that didn't have the original hobbes. He even coded a web form for file uploads.
Even that I share your same concerns, I say let's see how it works out and see if we can evolve from there.

The important thing to start is being able to backup "Nathan's Hobbes" files (He agreed to that), and keep uploading the backup on different places like OS2Site.com/sw.
After some days of the release we will see if this works or not, and if not, we can ask Nathan if something can be worked out.

But Roderick, I prefer if you keep going and improve OS2Site. I'm also willing to collaborate to have OS2Site as the "Main 'OLD and NEW' Repository". (Like saying HobbesArchive has the new stuff, but OS2Site/sw has everything)
I still dream of reorganizing the OS2Site.com/sw (After a full public backup in archive.org or course). I have on my hard drive (and backup) the same hobbes reorganized structure, but with the difference that I try to collect all older versions of the software. That is 56GB for the moment compared against the 18GB that Hobbes are right now. Yes, it is not "that interesting" to collect older versions of the software for some, but it is worth to be preserved and 56GB is not a lot of storage these days.

Regards

[Rich Walsh]

I have decided to cancel work on that mirror as Nathan went ahead.

Who is "Nathan"?  And why would you (or any of us) care what "Nathan" is doing?

[mike]

Hobbes was running fine for decades so it was a surprise that there was still a contact in recent times to the NMSU and that Martin could start the reorganization.
Like others already pointed out the cause for the shutdown is most likely because of a retirement in the staff. It would be nice when they could share the scripts and config of the server to have the same user experience in the future just on a different URL with includes the hobbes name.
The current os2site is not a hobbes mirror and has different file set and structure.

[Dave Yeo]

I have decided to cancel work on that mirror as Nathan went ahead.

Who is "Nathan"?  And why would you (or any of us) care what "Nathan" is doing?

Nathan Woodruff, hobbesarchive.com. Long discussion on warp.groups.io

[David Graser]

I have decided to cancel work on that mirror as Nathan went ahead.

Who is "Nathan"?  And why would you (or any of us) care what "Nathan" is doing?

Nathan Woodruff, hobbesarchive.com. Long discussion on warp.groups.io

Nathan has been around for a long time like the rest of us.  Unfortunately, he does not appear to utilize the forums of this site.  I remember he wrote a database program to go along with what I believe was IBMs.

 I followed the email from the newletters being sent from that newsgroup.  He managed to rewrite the Hobbes database program from scratch in 3 days.  It looks and feels like the Hobbes, but he has enhanced the search engine.

[Roderick Klein]

Hello Roderick

Nathan is doing a good progress with the replacement development, he has the filesearch links, search inside the "long description" text and other fixes that didn't have the original hobbes. He even coded a web form for file uploads.
Even that I share your same concerns, I say let's see how it works out and see if we can evolve from there.

The important thing to start is being able to backup "Nathan's Hobbes" files (He agreed to that), and keep uploading the backup on different places like OS2Site.com/sw.
After some days of the release we will see if this works or not, and if not, we can ask Nathan if something can be worked out.

But Roderick, I prefer if you keep going and improve OS2Site. I'm also willing to collaborate to have OS2Site as the "Main 'OLD and NEW' Repository". (Like saying HobbesArchive has the new stuff, but OS2Site/sw has everything)
I still dream of reorganizing the OS2Site.com/sw (After a full public backup in archive.org or course). I have on my hard drive (and backup) the same hobbes reorganized structure, but with the difference that I try to collect all older versions of the software. That is 56GB for the moment compared against the 18GB that Hobbes are right now. Yes, it is not "that interesting" to collect older versions of the software for some, but it is worth to be preserved and 56GB is not a lot of storage these days.

Regards

Sorry Martin there is only so many balls I keep in the air at the time (day has 24 hours) . I am willing to work on it but the priority for me has gone down as I simply find the current setup not workable. I also wanted to assemble a team of volunteers to process incoming on os2site.com. I just do not think its useful to have two servers with an upload DIR.

Roderick

[Ian B Manners]

After 32 Years, One of the Net's Oldest Software Archives Is Shutting Down
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/01/29/2310242/after-32-years-one-of-the-nets-oldest-software-archives-is-shutting-down

[Ian B Manners]

After 32 years, one of the ’Net’s oldest software archives is shutting down
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01/after-32-years-one-of-the-nets-oldest-software-archives-is-shutting-down/

[Martin Iturbide]

There was an update the "The Register" article that I just read.

Updated to add on January 16:

A representative from the New Mexico State University told The Reg: “We have made the difficult decision to no longer host these files on hobbes.nmsu.edu. Although I am unable to go into specifics, we had to evaluate our priorities and had to make the difficult decision to discontinue the service. “We tried to pick a date far enough out to provide the community time to gather the files and find a new home. It has been fascinating to see the stories people have shared about this server. “The NMSU team that is currently supporting [the] server is trying their best to meet the needs of the community. We have provided additional resources for Hobbes as there was a clear spike in traffic after the announcement. If we have additional information, we will update Hobbes.nmsu.edu.”

Regards