---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "zerothis baud" <zerothis23@gmail.com <mailto:zerothis23@gmail.com>>
Date: Apr 11, 2016 7:28 PM
Subject: RE: The dangers of repository deletion
To:
Cc:
As an amateur archaeologist of videogames, I'd say only a small
fraction of every game ever made still exists as source code
(including documented assembly code). Freely available source games
and published/distributed as source (regardless of license), does not
help as much as on might think. Many games are lost entirely (through
official channels, i.e. the copyright holder), source and binaries as
well. You'll find them mentioned by people, even the original author.
But the games themselves are as good as gone. For more recent games,
you can even see the webpages by the authors on archive.org
<http://archive.org>. But, most
links no longer point to downloadable files.
This leaves personal archiving as the last method to recover lost
works. Somebody, somewhere, perhaps, has the data on a CD-R, old hard
drive, floppy disk, tape, cassette, or even printed on paper. And that
is what I recommend. Find it, copy it, save it, re-save it every 5
years. If you can't keep it, give it to someone who can. Someday
someone may want to find it and there may be only copy in existence.