On 2005.02.08, Tim Moss <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > If someone is offering to donate freely, commercial-grade hosting on
> > AOLserver, please contact me.
>
> Surely AOL could provide this as a way of thanking the efforts of the
> community developers?

The downside of this is that no one from outside of AOL could ever get
access to make changes to the site, because of the way security is set
up.

Right now, anyone inside or outside of AOL can make changes to the
aolserver.com site if they're a project member of the AOLserver
SourceForge project because aolserver.com is also hosted at SourceForge.

> > Great!  Publish your findings on the web so others can benefit from
> > your hard work.
>
> I did precisely this some time ago and published the results on this
> list.  Guess what - sample-config.tcl came back more or less
> unchanged.

What were your expectations?  What needs to happen for your expectations
to be met?  Am I the only one who can do the necessary?  What can I do
to delegate the necessary authority to enable to you to self-serve your
expectations?

I think that's going to be my motto for 2005: "What can I do to enable
you to self-serve your expectations?"

> It is a neat idea - I'd personally take it further and put all the
> defaults are in the config file and suggest that the server errors
> without them rather than having them hardcoded hidden away in the C
> code.

(Sane) defaults are nice.  It allows for sites to go through upgrades
without having to do a lot of configuration file management.

But then, in past lives, I was the sole sysadmin of over 100+ hosts, so
I really appreciate designs that minimize effort on the admin. to
maintain and operate ...

However, I do agree that there needs to be an updated Admin. Guide that
documents all the various knobs and switches that can be manipulated.
Who's up for that task?  :-)

> > > 7. Release more code. For a specific example of what I am talking
> > > about, consider the NV: network variable. For _years_ I have been
> > > inquiring about NVs, since Jim Davidson mentioned that they are
> > > used by AOL. An NV is simply shared data, available to multiple
> > > physical servers, a networked nsv, I suppose, but maybe more. This
> > > would serve the same essential purpose of a javabean I think.
>
> Hear hear!  This is the kind of generic extremely useful code that AOL
> must have lying about that is unlikely in itself to be a trade secret,
> but would be of huge assistance to the community developers.

Actually, it turns out that the AOLserver implementation of NV could
very well have been patentable when it was first designed and
implemented.  I don't know true this is, but it's something to consider
carefully.

It's also a concern that many open source projects seem to be completely
oblivious to: accepting contributions can be dangerous, if it implements
functionality that somehow violates someone else's patent or otherwise
protected intellectual property.  As frivolous as the SCO vs. Everyone
lawsuit may seem at the surface, it's a real threat and I imagine most
open source projects don't have the money for the necessary legal
counsel needed to defend against such threats.

> That's not a good argument to use.
> If one has a choice between some code that will handle X thousand
> requests/users/whatever and some that is known to handle X million
> requests/users/whatever, which would you prefere to use even if you
> don't need that capacity right now?

Do you live in a 32-bedroom mansion all by yourself?  Do you drive an
18-wheeler truck to commute to your corporate job?

There's an inherent beauty in right-sized solutions.

> Start completely from scratch
> Or
> Start from stock OpenACS
>
> I personally wanted something in-between and there wasn't anything
> I suspect I'm not alone.

Did you publish what you've developed from scratch?  Put a OSI-approved
license on it (preferably the AOLserver Public License) and lets declare
it the in-between solution.

That doesn't solve the real problem ...

-- Dossy

--
Dossy Shiobara                       mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Panoptic Computer Network             web: http://www.panoptic.com/
  "He realized the fastest way to change is to laugh at your own
    folly -- then you can let go and quickly move on." (p. 70)


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