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Ask HN: Where to put a static page that would last forever

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Ask HN: Where to put a static page that would last forever

#1

Post by DanielBMarkham »

As I get older, I've decided to write physical books. I want something of a legacy for after I leave.

In the back of the book, I'd like to put a 2D barcode to send folks to a static webpage somewhere, maybe for further information, an update, text changes, etc.

But where would that go? If I buy a domain I've got to renew it every year. Same goes for AWS static page hosting. I thought about using my GitHub account, but each year they keep screwing around with keys and logins and whatnot. I'm sure that most all of these places I'm using will delete both my account and data after a certain number of years of inactivity.

So where do I put a static webpage I can link to and be assured (mostly) that it'll be around 100 years or more from now?

Re: Ask HN: Where to put a static page that would last forever

#2

Post by DamonHD »

I don't know, but I've put this question in my favourites list!

I do mantain a stripped-down ZIP of one of my key sites in Zenodo:

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10119195

But maybe you could just host a plain-text or similar file there or at Dryad and hand out the DOI / URL?

Re: Ask HN: Where to put a static page that would last forever

#3

Post by rootshelled »

This is actually pretty hard to do. We all have heard of internet rot/dead internet theory.

One shout might be to link to internet archive instead of the resource directly. Though we can't be sure internet archive will keep the current system working as is (e.g. search params may change etc)

The only solid solution I have is to set up a foundation and pour money in so that they will be responsible for upkeep. But that would be an hassle to execute.

100 years in internet time is very long, internet as we know it now hasn't been along for 100 years.

I wonder if there aren't services that specialize in this.

Re: Ask HN: Where to put a static page that would last forever

#4

Post by saintamh »

I’m not sure I would bet on the web itself still existing in 100 years. That being said, I think the biggest risk here is your hosting company going out of business, or changing their products such that they won’t host your site anymore.

If you’re OK with your website having a big ugly URL (which might not be a problem if you use a QR code to point to it anyway) then hosting a static website on AWS S3 might be your best bet. There’s so much money flowing into AWS right now, I imagine there will be enough interest to keep it going for several decades to come.

EDITED TO ADD As far as i know you can prepay your AWS bills, so you could prepay a massive amount and hope it outruns future price inflation

Re: Ask HN: Where to put a static page that would last forever

#5

Post by JawsOfALion »

I'm pretty sure if you put a file on s3, make it public, it will be accessible for quite a while, with no cost (if it's just text like you're describing). I have an aws account that has the html/js stored in s3 for a static website i created, I haven't paid a bill in years on it, and the site is still running today.

I don't expect it to last 100 years though, they may very well change their free policies a year from now, hell, i don't know if AWS or even Amazon will be around 100 years from now.

Re: Ask HN: Where to put a static page that would last forever

#7

Post by JawsOfALion »

saintamh wrote: post #4

I’m not sure I would bet on the web itself still existing in 100 years. That being said, I think the biggest risk here is your hosting company going out of business, or changing their products such that they won’t host your site anymore. If you’re OK with your website having a big ugly URL (which might not be a problem if you use a QR code to point to it anyway) then hosting a static website on AWS S3 might be your b…

If he's hosting just some textfiles (i.e. a few KB), he won't have any aws bills that he would need to worry about prepaying. (I have a static s3 website, low traffic and low storage size, and i have not paid anything on it for years).

At least that's the case today, but the policy may change tomorrow. It's not easy to guarantee anything 10 years from now, let alone 100 years.

Re: Ask HN: Where to put a static page that would last forever

#8

Post by mwedwards »

If you are willing to relinquish copyright claims on your work, for example by including a copyleft statement in the book’s preface, an organization like Project Gutenberg may be willing to host it, ostensibly in perpetuity. Other considerations are whether the book can stand alone as text-only, or will it rely on additional media to convey its message to the reader?

More about Project Gutenberg: http://gutenberg.org

Re: Ask HN: Where to put a static page that would last forever

#9

Post by DanielBMarkham »

mwedwards wrote: post #8

If you are willing to relinquish copyright claims on your work, for example by including a copyleft statement in the book’s preface, an organization like Project Gutenberg may be willing to host it, ostensibly in perpetuity. Other considerations are whether the book can stand alone as text-only, or will it rely on additional media to convey its message to the reader? More about Project Gutenberg: http://gutenberg.org

Just to clarify, I'm asking where to host a static page that would be a modified introduction, addendum, errata, "if you like this try these", "The author died by wooden badger attack", etc

Not the entire book. I wouldn't have to copyleft the entire thing, right?

My current static page is just an "I like this book, please give me this free thing and put me on a mailing list" kind of thing. But that's not really the point. The point is "how can I use static pages, presumably the thing the internet was built for, to put a few pages of extra material on the book and perhaps give links for folks to follow if they're interested in the topic?"

Traditionally, you'd issue a new edition with such information, but that seems like a hella work and expenditure, and small stuff like this should be the kind of thing you'd be able to stick somewhere online, if nothing else as a parking spot until you eventually publish a new edition.

I wonder if the Internet Archive would be interested in this kind of archival.

Re: Ask HN: Where to put a static page that would last forever

#10

Post by DamonHD »

mwedwards wrote: post #8

If you are willing to relinquish copyright claims on your work, for example by including a copyleft statement in the book’s preface, an organization like Project Gutenberg may be willing to host it, ostensibly in perpetuity. Other considerations are whether the book can stand alone as text-only, or will it rely on additional media to convey its message to the reader? More about Project Gutenberg: http://gutenberg.org

That's approximately my approach with a CC BY 4.0 / Apache 2.0 / CC0 licence and uploading to Zenodo / Dryad and getting an official DOI.

Possibly even some useful legitimate fodder for those fashionable AI data sinks!

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