With time and the continuing development of the observing system many files (both documentation and observing related files, e.g., observing scripts but also instrument related configuration files etc.) have become obsolete. In most cases we keep copies of these files because we keep the old and new systems available during a transition period or we want to keep them for information, but also because we just do not remove them. These files typically are not directly visible to users, but a simple search in the observing computers or on the web pages will show them up which can lead to misunderstandings or incorrect use of files. To avoid this we have started to specifically remove obsolete files as much as possible and we are setting up a separate file system that will have the same structure as the existing system where files can be put in the same relative place (i.e., the same sub-directory name but in a different physical location) to make it easy to move old files away and find them back when need be, but which makes it hard to access them as they will not show up in any simple search of the normal operational system.
Thomas Augusteijn 2012-02-21