Ingebrigtsen: Whatever Happened To news.gmane.org?

[Posted January 7, 2020 by corbet]

Lars Ingebrigtsen provides details on the current status of the Gmane archive server and asks for feedback on whether it is still useful. "Over the past few years, people have asked me what happened to Gmane, and I’ve mostly clasped my hands over my ears and gone 'la la la can’t hear you', because there’s nothing about the story I’m now finally going to tell that I don’t find highly embarrassing. I had hoped I could just continue that way until I die, but perhaps it would be more constructive to actually tell people what’s going on instead of doing an ostrich impression." (Thanks to Giovanni Gherdovich).

Gmane web interface

Posted Jan 7, 2020 21:24 UTC (Tue) by darwi (subscriber, #131202) [Link] (10 responses)

I still miss the Gmane threaded web interface. It was just perfect for navigating long LKML threads, and to this day, I find it more "ergonomic" than the current Lore/public-inbox web interface.

A (partially broken) archived sample is here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20131121040250/http://news.gm...

Well, nothing lasts forever.... Thanks Lars for all the hard work.

Gmane web interface

Posted Jan 8, 2020 3:48 UTC (Wed) by mirabilos (subscriber, #84359) [Link] (9 responses)

I miss both that and the NNTP interface. There were somewhat crucial for OSS development and visibility, and the loss of GMane hit us hard.

Gmane web interface

Posted Jan 8, 2020 6:51 UTC (Wed) by pbonzini (subscriber, #60935) [Link] (8 responses)

There is an NNTP interface, though not as comprehensive as Gmane of course, at nntp.lore.kernel.org.

Gmane web interface

Posted Jan 8, 2020 13:55 UTC (Wed) by mirabilos (subscriber, #84359) [Link] (7 responses)

I was using it for lists not carried there… mostly in the wide OSS world.

But thanks anyway.

Gmane web interface

Posted Jan 8, 2020 14:02 UTC (Wed) by rschroev (subscriber, #4164) [Link] (6 responses)

GMane's NNTP service at news.gmane.org is still up and running.

Gmane web interface

Posted Jan 8, 2020 14:43 UTC (Wed) by leromarinvit (subscriber, #56850) [Link] (3 responses)

But it won't be for long, if you read the linked blog post - he doesn't control the domain any more, and needs to change DNS records because he has to move the server. But noone's answering his e-mails at the company that now owns the domain...

Gmane web interface

Posted Jan 8, 2020 18:01 UTC (Wed) by rschroev (subscriber, #4164) [Link] (1 responses)

Indeed. I screwed up: I replied to a comment without bothering to even look at the article, so I didn't realize the full context. My only excuse, and I know it's not much of an excuses, is that I'm a bit sick. Mea culpa.

Gmane web interface

Posted Jan 8, 2020 20:13 UTC (Wed) by leromarinvit (subscriber, #56850) [Link]

Don't worry, I didn't mean to patronize, and I'm sorry if I came across that way. I just wanted to give a heads up to anyone reading that it might not be up much longer.

Also, get well soon!

Gmane web interface

Posted Jan 8, 2020 20:04 UTC (Wed) by sumanah (guest, #59891) [Link]

Right, which is very disappointing. It seems to be Yomura Corporation, right? Anyone want to ping their friends or acquaintances over there?

Gmane web interface

Posted Jan 8, 2020 14:53 UTC (Wed) by gghh (guest, #102105) [Link] (1 responses)

The article says the NNTP service won't be up for long. The author needs to move the server to a new location and the company owning the domain name isn't updating the DNS record.

Gmane web interface

Posted Jan 8, 2020 15:01 UTC (Wed) by pbonzini (subscriber, #60935) [Link]

It was also not delivering all messages at some time (which is when I switched to lore for mailing lists hosted there).

Ingebrigtsen: Whatever Happened To news.gmane.org?

Posted Jan 9, 2020 15:42 UTC (Thu) by storner (subscriber, #119) [Link]

Thanks for this story - literally minutes after reading it, one of my mailing lists got unsubscribe/subscribe messages from a gmane.org and gmane-mx.org. LWN made sure I knew they were legit :-)

Ingebrigtsen: Whatever Happened To news.gmane.org?

Posted Jan 10, 2020 20:06 UTC (Fri) by osma (subscriber, #6912) [Link]

I haven't used any of Gmane for a long time, but it has been a valuable service for the community. Thank you Lars for taking care of it all these years - despite the hiccups - and thank you for taking the time, energy and bravery to explain the history, even the embarrassing parts!

I hope the company gets the message via some channel and does the right thing with the DNS records. If not, at least you've taken care of all the sensible alternative scenarios.

Humans in the middle

Posted Jan 13, 2020 12:38 UTC (Mon) by zoobab (guest, #9945) [Link] (3 responses)

Time for systems where you don't need sysadmins in the middle who can mess with our data:

1. No DNS to renew
2. No SSL certifcate to renew
3. No server to renew

Etc...

How do we get there?

Humans in the middle

Posted Jan 13, 2020 13:36 UTC (Mon) by johill (subscriber, #25196) [Link] (1 responses)

Host as a tor hidden service?

Humans in the middle

Posted Jan 13, 2020 15:21 UTC (Mon) by zoobab (guest, #9945) [Link]

You still need a server where to put your content on.

Humans in the middle

Posted Jan 14, 2020 1:51 UTC (Tue) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link]

Having used IPFS before it fits all those criteria… yet still manages to be horrible.

So we also need something that's lightweight, reliable, with a working web of trust, and sustainable by people without PhDs in graph theory. Unfortunately most software in that group suffers from the centralisation of the first three.