From: tadguy@ab00.larc.nasa.gov (Tad Guy)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.announce
Subject: AB20 Archives to go away...
Date: 9 Apr 92 15:56:08 GMT
Reply-To: tadguy@ab00.larc.nasa.gov (Tad Guy)
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.misc


The Bottom Line:

- AB20 will stop accepting uploads on April 13, 1992.

- AB20 will stop accepting FTP connections on April 27, 1992.

- Names of other Amiga-oriented archive sites to publish on AB20 are solicited.

The Long Message:

I am the "maintainer" of the AB20.LaRC.NASA.GOV [128.155.23.64] archive site.
I have taken an assignment with another organization at LaRC, and will not be
taking the Archives with me.

Because of this, I'm proceeding with an orderly shutdown of the Archives by
first disallowing new uploads (effectively making the Archives read-only),
and then disabling the Archives entirely.

The Archives will become read-only on April 13, 1992.  After that time,
attempts to STORe new files will return a helpful diagnostic.  The Archives
will still be available for download as before.  This read-only period is to
allow other archive sites to effectively "mirror" or get their own copies of
the final state of AB20.

The Archives will be placed off-line on April 27, 1992.  After that time,
anonymous FTP connections will be met with a message reporting that the
Archives are no longer available, and will suggest other Amiga-oriented
archive sites.

If you are the administrator of an Amiga-oriented anonymous FTP site, and
would like your site suggested by AB20 as an alternative, send me mail with
your site's fully qualified domain name, the FTP administrators names and
address, and any path information necessary.

Hopefully this transition plan will allow a mostly painless retirement of AB20.

And now, some answers:
> Can't you leave it in a read-only state for longer?

Besides taking a new position (and leaving ab20, the machine, behind), I've
already found I don't have sufficient time to properly run the archives.  I
suspect there are other archive sites out there that will take on the `roles'
ab20 has filled all this time.  I also suspect more archive sites would have
come on-line already if ab20 wasn't so prominent.  Thus, it's possible that
by leaving ab20 in a poorly run yet available state, I've actually stunted
the groth of other sites.

All that aside, I simply cannot afford to spend the time maintaining the
archives any longer, and cannot inflict them upon my successor in AB.

The timing was chosen so that the archives will be off-line (and hopefully
less ping'ed) for sufficient time before my successor here takes over.

> What will you do with the Usenet archives?

Complete archives of comp.sources.amiga are available from a variety of
places, including ftp.uu.net and wuarchive.wustl.edu, and wuarchive.wustl.edu
also maintains an archive of comp.binaries.amiga.  Nothing gets thrown away;
I'll still have it all should there be a problem...



I've enjoyed running the Archives on AB20 (and it's predecessor, xanth).  I
consider the Archives to have been a success, and the source of that success
has been YOU: the users (both uploaders and downloaders), not me, have made
the Archives what they are.  

So, that's it.  Look for a companion posting advertising for a new moderator
of comp.sources.amiga and comp.binaries.amiga, soon...

	...tad

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