bbcbasic.co.uk domain

[RichardRussell]

As I run down my involvement with BBC BASIC I am thinking of selling (or otherwise disposing of) the bbcbasic.co.uk domain. The BBC has a strong claim to any domain name starting bbc... and could probably demand that I relinquish it anyway, so one possibility would be to donate it to them.

There would be some inevitable consequences of disposing of the domain. They would include the closure of the web site, the wiki and this forum; but that has already happened several times because of the monthly bandwidth allocation being exceeded, and nobody has even noticed! The only slightly unfortunate effect would be that most of the links in the BB4W and BBCSDL Help menus would stop working.

I'm not in a position to give any timescale; this is just something I am considering at the moment.

[Edja]

would include the closure of the web site, the wiki and this forum

What will be the alternative way to consult this same information if/when not anymore available via the web site, wiki or this forum ?
They contain a vast amount of explanation, tips & tricks and programming examples that I refer to when on a programming streak
Edja

[RichardRussell]

What will be the alternative way to consult this same information if/when not anymore available via the web site, wiki or this forum ?

The only reference information at the website not duplicated elsewhere is the small set of BB4W example programs there. I honestly don't think they would be missed, but feel free to download and archive them yourself if you wish.

The forum isn't my responsibility, I simply provide the hosting. The admin may have a view, but since the forum closed down completely for an entire week only recently, during which time the unofficial forum took over the reins, I expect the same thing would happen again.

So really the only serious loss of reference information might be the wiki. That could probably be quite easily 'scraped' and moved elsewhere, which is what happened before when Wikispaces closed down. The fact that the links to the wiki in the BB4W and BBCSDL Help menus would stop working is a shame.

There should be plenty of warning, and hence opportunities to take appropriate measures to deal with these issues, if and when it happens.

[Pete]

I hope that amazing bbcbasic.co.uk and the forum and other resources keep going!

I wouldn't have thought that the BBC have any claim to bbcbasic.co.uk. Am I not right in saying that the BBC commissioned the Computer Literacy project and what might have been called the Acorn Photon became the BBC microcomputer. So it's a specific reference to the programming language that came with the BBC B's. Personally I wouldn't donate the site to the BBC.

If you do sell bbcbasic.co.uk, I would have thought lots of people might be interested in buying it and supporting its cost (including myself!). I agree with Edja's post.

[RichardRussell]

Personally I wouldn't donate the site to the BBC.

That would at least ensure that it doesn't 'fall into the wrong hands'. I know Brandon Butterworth (BBC Chief Scientist) from way back; we used to work together, and he was the one who originally registered the bbc.co.uk domain! He also co-authored BBC BASIC (86) for MS-DOS so his credentials for 'looking after' the bbcbasic.co.uk domain couldn't be better.

My main concern is that if the domain registration simply 'lapses' when I die it will go to auction and may well be snapped up by somebody who does not have the best interests of BBC BASIC for Windows and BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0 at heart. For example I wouldn't be surprised if somebody from the RISC OS community might be interested in buying it; they consider me to be a traitor and my products to be 'anti Acorn'.