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arXiv moving from Cornell servers to Google Cloud

info.arxiv.org

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Re: arXiv moving from Cornell servers to Google Cloud

#121

Post by khuey »

x_may wrote: post #40

It may be that it was time for the hardware that was previously running Arxiv to be retired and this is just another Capex -> Opex decision being made by so many tech companies. I'd like to know if GCP is covering part of the bill? Or will Cornell be paying all of it? The new architecture smells of "[GCP] will pay/credit all of these new services if you agree to let one of our architects work with you". If GCP is hel…

> If GCP is helping, stay tuned for a blog post from google some time around the completion of the migration with a title like "Reaffirming our commitment to science" or something similarly self affirming.

"Google pays to run an enormous intellectual resource in exchange for a self-congratulatory blogpost" seems like a perfectly acceptable outcome for society here.

Re: arXiv moving from Cornell servers to Google Cloud

#123

Post by chubot »

kiproping wrote: post #65

I recently read about arxiv, it's history and all the mini-drama's around it https://www.wired.com/story/inside-arxiv-most-transformative... . I wonder if Ginsparg is finally retiring and relinquishing access.

Wow, this is a great article! (other archive link - https://archive.is/XVCi7 )

I didn't realize arXiV was started in 1991. And then I wondered why I had never heard of it while I was at Cornell from 1997-2001. Apparently it only assumed the arXiV name in 1999.

I like that it was a bunch of shell scripts :)

Long before arXiv became critical infrastructure for scientific research, it was a collection of shell scripts running on Ginsparg’s NeXT machine.

Interesting connections:

As an undergrad at Harvard, he was classmates with Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer; his older brother was a graduate student at Stanford studying with Terry Winograd, an AI pioneer.

On the move to the web in the early 90's:

He also occasionally consulted with a programmer at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) named Tim Berners-Lee

And then there was a 1994 move to Perl, and 2022 move to Python ...

Although my favorite/primary language is Python, I can't help but wonder if "rewrite in Python" is mainly a social issue ... i.e. maybe they don't know how to hire Perl programmers and move to the cloud. I guess rewrites are often an incomplete transmission of knowledge about the codebase.

Re: arXiv moving from Cornell servers to Google Cloud

#124

Post by tokai »

Would love to see arXiv set up as a consortium of international academic libraries instead. Scientific publishing is where it is today because universities and scientific societies sold off or gave their journals to private enterprises. Letting Google in is a move in the wrong direction imo.

Re: arXiv moving from Cornell servers to Google Cloud

#125

Post by tough »

kevinventullo wrote: post #115

If funding is an issue, I’m quite certain they could set up a nonprofit to support it. I would happily donate to keep arxiv around.

its not a nonprofit (cornell, its a university) but they do accept donations

https://info.arxiv.org/about/donate.html

Re: arXiv moving from Cornell servers to Google Cloud

#126

Post by kadushka »

Analemma_ wrote: post #120
kadushka wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'm going to fling that response right back at you. "Enshittification" is not a generic term for "update I don't like", it describes a specific dynamic that happens when a company inserts itself as a middleman into a two-sided market. arXiv could get worse in other ways, but enshittification in particular can't happen to it, that's a category error. I think you should offer better thoughts instead of mad-libbing in b…

I'm using "enshittification" as defined here: https://www.merriam-webster.com/slang/enshittification

I believe there's a real chance of it happening here as a result of this transition. I personally experienced results of several of similar transitions over the course of my career. What I haven't experienced are problems with Arxiv that would motivate such a change. There might be actual problems they are trying to solve - but I still believe things will probably get worse as a result.

Re: arXiv moving from Cornell servers to Google Cloud

#127

Post by surajrmal »

whygcp wrote: post #98
Orygin wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have looked at it recently and it seems Iran is blocking GCP, not the other way around. Not sure if Google keep a doc up to date with who blocks them.

Why do you think it's Iran doing blocking? That's not what Google says: https://support.google.com/a/answer/2891389?hl=en

Workspace is not gcp.

Re: arXiv moving from Cornell servers to Google Cloud

#128

Post by surajrmal »

evrythingisfin wrote: post #101
specialp wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is that. I work for an org with close ties to arXiv, and just like us they are getting a lot more demand due to AI crawling. As a primary source of information there is a lot of traffic. They do have technical issues from time to time due to this demand, and I think their stability is just due to the exceptional amount of effort they take to keep it going. They are also getting more submissions and i…

GC seems like a bad choice to me. The GC CLI and tools aren’t terrible, but their services in-general have historically been not been friendly to use and their support involves average documentation and humans that talk at users instead of serve them. Google as a company is not what it was, either. A lot of their funding was driven from advertising, and between social media, streaming, and LLMs, that seems like it ma…

Everything has pros and cons. Just because their calculus came out different from yours doesn't mean they made the wrong decision for their situation. Hundreds of thousands of organizations have made similar conclusions to arxiv.

Google cloud profitable these days and advertising or other income streams drying up will only entice Google to further invest in cloud to ensure they are more diversified. Google isn't going to go away overnight and cloud is perhaps the least risky business they operate in.

Re: arXiv moving from Cornell servers to Google Cloud

#129

Post by philipov »

tough wrote: post #125
kevinventullo wrote: post #115

If funding is an issue, I’m quite certain they could set up a nonprofit to support it. I would happily donate to keep arxiv around.

its not a nonprofit (cornell, its a university) but they do accept donations https://info.arxiv.org/about/donate.html

Cornell is a nonprofit.

Re: arXiv moving from Cornell servers to Google Cloud

#130

Post by Tepix »

dewey wrote: post #37
Tepix wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google will likely see who accesses which papers

They could already just look at Google Search popularity if that would be so interesting.

Google already has large scale surveillance of large parts of the internet thanks to their tracking cookies that are used for google analytics. They can track individual users, not just get some statistics.
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