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points by greycol 2 days ago | 0 comments

Without getting into the much debated philosophy of restoration/display of preserved things and how restoration can often cause degradation to the original piece, consider that just preserving the data in the manner you suggest also requires preserving the original software if you ever want to view it. Which requires not just preserving that original software but also all the external hardware and software that original software relies on. Quite often that's a dead end as it requires preserving an activation/license server that the preservers don't have access to.

[–] reactordev 2 days ago

That isn’t true, you preserve the data as is for the software as is. You can emulate under it if you need to run it. This is what internet archive has done and the proper preservation of the media is in tact. In NO WAY do you ever need to convert the data back to a workable source in its original authoring program.

[–] greycol 1 day ago

You are wrong, you are basically saying "black cats exist therefore cats can't be tabby", there are plenty of preservation initiatives that preserve works in different forms when the original media can not be practically preserved or displayed. Yes best practice is to preserve as close to initial state as possible, that does not mean that when you cannot feasibly preserve the work in it's original state (with digital it's often due to drm) that you just say screw it nothing we can do but chuck it in the dustbin of history.

[–] reactordev 1 day ago

circumventing DRM is exactly what separates breaking the law from preservation...

[–] greycol 1 day ago

That's like saying bank robbers don't actually shoot guns, only people who use guns legally shoot them. It's still preservation. Or even more apt saying archeologists aren't archeologists they're tomb raiders. They may be tomb raiders but they are still archeologists.