Gavin,
I personally really like your proposals. There was a lot of
software that was either PD or the rights have been freely
given, yet the items are strewn across the internet or hidden
away in disk boxes somewhere, which seems a real shame.
On the flip-side, links can be made to the sites, like Colin's,
that are still producing commercially for the SAM and so both
should benefit from the traffic-flow between the two, which can
only be a good thing.
It will be nice to have as a kind of museum of all things SAM.
Something semi-official, that both old-hands and new faces can
go. On that note, I put my vote forwards for the samcoupe.org
address.
Andy
Tuesday, November 23, 2004, 8:18:28 PM, you wrote:
Gavin> I've been thinking a lot about this software archive idea we've been
talking
Gavin> about, so thought I'd write up a little summary of what my thoughts are.
Gavin> Proposal:
Gavin> A World Of Spectrum style semi-official archive for SAM software, housed
on the
Gavin> web and built by the members of sam-users.
Gavin> Reasons:
Gavin> (1) So that warez style GoodSAMC collections are not needed
Gavin> (2) To prevent software getting lost as floppies continue to deteriorate
over
Gavin> time
Gavin> (3) To allow people who didn't experience the SAM at its (erm) "peak" to
enjoy
Gavin> it now
Gavin> (4) To allow us to get more use out of our SAMs by providing more
software to
Gavin> run
Gavin> In practice:
Gavin> A three month period has been decided upon as a reasonable length of
time to
Gavin> track down as many authors/copyright holders as possible - between us
all, we
Gavin> should be able to cover the majority of the SAM back catalogue. For
those first
Gavin> three months we would get the site established and start filling it with
PD
Gavin> plus all software that permission has already been granted to distribute.
Gavin> After the three months, we put the rest of the software online that we
have
Gavin> gained permission to release or that we can find no good reason to
withhold
Gavin> (something we will discuss among ourselves on the list). Software is then
Gavin> provided in .dsk format, zipped up and placed on the web. Each software
title
Gavin> will be posted with at least one screenshot and hopefully (over time)
scans of
Gavin> any documentation it originally came with. There would also be links to
Gavin> previews/reviews/other press articles of the time. If at any time the
author or
Gavin> copyright holder requests the software be removed, it will obviously be
done so
Gavin> as soon as possible. In any case, permission to distribute software will
always
Gavin> be continually sought. Where permission has been denied, the software
will
Gavin> still be listed for historic purposes, but without a download link - the
title
Gavin> will also be listed in a sort of blacklist, so that we know we are not
free to
Gavin> copy it among ourselves.
Gavin> Finally, there will be a page on which we list software and/or authors
and what
Gavin> stage we have got to in tracking down an author.
Gavin> For example:
Gavin> Nigel Kettlewell (Days Of Sorcery) - address found - letter sent - no
reply as
Gavin> yet
Gavin> Martin Bell (Waterworks 1 + 2) - no contact details found
Gavin> Website:
Gavin> I've been looking for the cheapest options over the weekend and I think
I may
Gavin> use Catalyst2 (http://www.catalyst2.com) which I've used before and found
Gavin> reliable. They have a �4.99 a month Linux hosting option, that gives us
500MB
Gavin> disk space and 5GB transfer - that should be enough to get us going. I'm
happy
Gavin> to pay out of my own pocket initially, but it would be nice to sell a CD
of the
Gavin> archive at the yearly show in Norwich, for a fiver for example - if we
sold ten
Gavin> a year, we'd almost cover costs. At the end of the day, I'm not hugely
fussed
Gavin> if I'm a little out of pocket, it's not a huge amount - and if we do
happen to
Gavin> sell a load of CDs, I want to point out that the site is strictly
non-profit
Gavin> making! I'll make sure all finance stuff is put on a page that we can
access so
Gavin> everyone knows what is going on.
Gavin> Domain name:
Gavin> I'm hoping we can agree on a name between us all. IMHO, it should
definitely be
Gavin> a .org as we are non-profit making and also "global" in nature. The
three I
Gavin> suggest are samcoupe.org, samcommunity.org (yes, yes I know, but I've
always
Gavin> thought it was a good name) or samusers.org/sam-users.org - they're all
Gavin> (currently) available. I'm really not sure, so I'm obviously open to all
Gavin> suggestions. I'd like it if we could have it chosen by this weekend
though, so
Gavin> I can register it then.
Gavin> This all looks anal and pedantic but I wanted to lay it out like this
because I
Gavin> know there are a couple of people who are very worried about this
although they
Gavin> are now broadly on side - I don't think Colin will mind me saying that
he was
Gavin> one of them and we really have talked for hours on this subject because I
Gavin> wanted to try and find away to have his support (if not his software!) I
really
Gavin> think it's the lesser of two evils, as I've said before and would only
help to
Gavin> keep the SAM alive, not do it damage.
Gavin> This is not anyone's pet project or anything of the sort - this is an
archive of
Gavin> our software and our memories as well as providing a great place for
someone to
Gavin> get to know the SAM - it's something we can build as a community and
then be
Gavin> proud of! </rousing speech>
Gavin> Debate away, nothing is set in stone in the slightest but I hope the
above is at
Gavin> least a good starting point.
Gavin> Gavin
