Phillip Hallam-Baker <hallam at gmail dot com> wrote:
I do not need to have the evidence of 500 years of experience of using
HTML to be able to demonstrate that HTML will be readable in 1000
years time. The difficulty of deciphering HTML is remarkably lower
than the difficulty of deciphering Linear B (3500 years old), Egyptian
hieroglyphs (last used 1600 years ago) or Mayan hieroglyphs (last used
400 years ago).
The other silly aspect of this "will it be readable in 1000 years"
argument is the supposition that the documents will sit, forgotten, for
1000 years until some future archaeologist digs them up and wants to
decipher them.
Obviously, if a newer and more wonderful format comes along that
obsoletes PDF or HTML or whatever, there will surely be a utility (or,
more likely, a spate of them) to convert data from the old format to the
new format. The RFC series, and zillions of documents more valuable
than 80% of the RFC series, will be converted and will exist in both old
and new formats LONG before there is any risk of irreversible
obsolescence.
--
Doug Ewell | Thornton, Colorado, USA | http://www.ewellic.org
RFC 5645, 4645, UTN #14 | ietf-languages @ http://is.gd/2kf0s
_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf