RE: Gnutella specs wiki down?

The website the-gdf.org does not reply, so the only source we can get is
even older:
http://rfc-gnutella.sourceforge.net/developer/stable/index.html

This is the initial protocol 0.4, that I had annotated years ago when I
wanted to integrate the additional requirements for 0.6 compatibility. At
least this one is complete for the basoic 0.6 protocol, and it was the base
for creating the version added later with additional tables and documents.

But I don't have any backup of what has been done later. It's quite
unfortunate that there's no more backup despite there has been several
websites involved in this group, that have hosted parts of the documents,
before they all decided to merge everything onto the-gdf.org that is finally
down.

I have not run any GDF related website myself. LimeWire should have had its
own backup because it was part of its business. At least the text, if this
was not the full history of the wiki.

Really, when the Wiki was created, the risks associated to the wiki
configuration should have been evaluated: wikis are constantly spammed and
under attacks (this is not new) and an archive usign static HTML files
generated from the wiki and checked in manually should have been maintained.

So I think that all what is interesting: the various documents that define
each extension developed by LimeWire and BearShare and the history of this
discussion list, will help collect back some information.

I suppose that LimeWire stioll has some old XML/DocBook working texts that
were used before going to the RFC. There may exist also some Word/OpenOfice
documents, or some copies downlaoded on harddisks of some subscribers of
this list (I had some of those documents, but this was at a time where I was
more involved in the project, and this was on an old computer that is no
longer functional).

One main error was the multiplication of specification sites, and then their
merging to a single place without verifying that they were safe for the long
term: we thought we had enough backups.

But spammers are still very active and still attacking all wikis. I don't
think that wikis are safe for long term housekeeping of any documentation.
They may be great for collaborative efforts when trying to reach a consensus
on some content, but the content must be archived and cleaned up in an
additional effort by someone trying to preserve the knowledge in a safe
format, where the content can also be reviewed, and used in a more efficient
way.

(The same is true for all wikis, including the largest ones like Wikipedia,
but Wikipedia has LOTS of mirrors and any problem in the mirroring is
immediately detected by one of the many mirror maintainers that expect to
have database dumps everyday).

I don't understand why, given the experience of spammers trying to break all
wikis, you did not perform any database dump for offsite backup... Notablyt
when you can see that these spammers are generating lot of traffic that is
inflating the volume of the history database, causing it the wiki to become
slower.

I have never trusted any generic website hosting company for creating
backups that fitted our own needs and scheduling times: their backups are
stupid and its stupid (unmanned) automation can't be stopped from destroying
all working backups by non working ones, including after an incident has
been signaled!). A 3-days only backup serves absolutely nothing (notably
when your ISP takes weeks to react after your signal the incident, and
cannot keep at least one backup for giving you enough time to restore most
missing data!), if the data is needed for very long term and you cannot
administrate the website at least every day to make sure it is fully
functional; it may just be useful if the site is administered daily by
people that will react a few hours after the incident, 365 days per year
(spammers and hackers trying to pollute and/or break your site are active
24/24 during all year).

> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] 
> De la part de Arne Babenhauserheide
> Envoyé : jeudi 20 mars 2008 09:21
> À : [email protected]
> Objet : Re: [the_gdf] Gnutella specs wiki down?
> 
> I'm sorry, that I can't bring better news. 
> 
> I checked the database again and again, but it seems my 
> provider just killed the tables (all except the hit counter 
> it seems). MySQLAdmin shows them as "in use" and when I try 
> to access them, I get the error that the table can't be found. 
> 
> My provider also didn't keep backups (more exactly: "Only 
> three days back") when moving me from one server to the 
> other, so I'm kinda out of ideas what I can do to regain them 
> - except of looking for the texts at archive.org: 
> 
> http://web.archive.org/web/*/gnutella-specs.rakjar.de/*
> 
> These are really old versions (april 2007), and incomplete, 
> but at least they do exist. 
> 
> For missing pages there's still the version from the-gdf.org
> 
> http://web.archive.org/web/20061205034740rn_1/the-gdf.org/inde
x.php?title=Main_Page
> 
> I'm very sorry, though I don't know what i could have done to 
> avoid it, except keeping my own backups instead of relying on 
> my provider for that. 
> 
> Best wishes,
> Arne
> 
> 
> El Tuesday, 26 de February de 2008 17:50:43 Arne 
> Babenhauserheide escribió:
> > I just got Gnutella for Users online again, but the specs 
> wiki got me into
> > some problems, since the the supporters at all-inkl only 
> uploaded a partial
> > backup last time (only one database - the specs wiki had a seperate
> > database), and the ydeleted the backups.
> >
> > I moved from one server to another, and the cache-pages of 
> the database
> > seem to have been damaged.
> >
> > If one among you has the necessary knowledge to repair a mediawiki
> > database,
> >
> > As soon as I have the export of the current version of the 
> database, I'll
> > post a link here. If I am not able to repair it, I'll have 
> to upload an old
> > version of the wiki :(
> >
> > I'm sorry for the inconvenience,
> > Arne
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Unpolitisch sein
> Heißt politisch sein
> Ohne es zu merken. 
> - Arne Babenhauserheide ( http://draketo.de )
> -- Weblog: http://blog.draketo.de
> 
> -- Mein öffentlicher Schlüssel (PGP/GnuPG): 
> http://draketo.de/inhalt/ich/pubkey.txt
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> 
> 
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