TheWorld ending??

[dan at geer.org]

It may have come back this time, but I wouldn't bet
much on TheWorld's longterm survival.

At this moment, www.theworld.com is offline, and they
(Software Tool and Die) have plenty of paying web hosting
customers.

Or look at OS level on their shell service: world.std.com
is at IRIX 6.2 [1]

Irix 6.2 has been in maintenance since June 1998 and
has been retired since January 2003. [2]

shell.theworld.com is at 6.5.9f [3]

IRIX 6.5.x is released quarterly such that 6.5.9f,
while current in August 2000, is now long retired
whereas the current version is 6.9.23 [4]
 
Given that SGI's energy is going into Linux clusters,
that world.std.com is more than five years out of rev,
that shell.theworld.com is more than three years out
of rev, and that both OS are long-since officially 
retired, and you do not have a sign of health.

I don't hate STD, but all I have there these days
is a .forward -- it's sad, actually.  Sort of like
junking your first car...

--dan


[1]
world% uname -R
6.2

[2]
http://support.sgi.com/content_request/20021220132833-NewsAnnouncement-7268/

[3]
shell% uname -R
6.5 6.5.9f

[4]
 6.5.1: 8/98
 6.5.2: 11/98
 6.5.3: 2/99
 6.5.4: 5/99
 6.5.5: 8/99
 6.5.6: 11/99
 6.5.7: 2/00
 6.5.8: 5/00
 6.5.9: 8/00  <--- where shell.theworld.com appears to be
6.5.10: 11/00
6.5.11: 2/01
6.5.12: 5/01
6.5.13: 8/01
6.5.14: 11/01
6.5.15: 2/02
6.5.16: 5/02
6.5.17: 8/02
6.5.18: 11/02
6.5.19: 2/03
6.5.20: 5/03
6.5.21: 8/03
6.5.22: 11/03 <--- where IRIX appears to be today
6.5.23: 2/04