I decided to post this notice here -- FYI. This is from Phil's personal page. Some have seen this -- some haven't. --Meemur -----------------

http://www.greenspun.com/

I'm currently trying to figure out how to redesign these services so that users are authenticated, e.g., before posting they have to register and respond to an email message (we won't know who they are but at least we'll know that they supplied an email address where they can receive mail)

a person is available to handle service inquiries

a programmer is available to provide enhancements based on user needs

the site is financially self-sustaining, i.e., either the owners of bboards or the most active posters are contributing to the costs of sysadmin, programming, hosting/bandwidth, and customer service

When these services were built in the mid-1990s it made a lot of sense. Running a database-backed Web server was an esoteric art that required expensive hardware and proprietary software.

But as we enter the year 2002 there are quite a few 14-year-olds who've set up Linux, Postgres, and OpenACS in less than one day.

With a $500 PC and a DSL line, they end up having all the collaboration tools that dotcoms spent $10 million to construct. Bottom line: prepare for some changes to these services!

Philip Greenspun, December 6, 2001

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

Answers

I should have added a (not) to the header. Sounds like Phil wants to start charging money. Let me be clear: I don't blame him, but I'm not comfortable sending him money.

Then again, he may be shooting off his typewriter and nothing is going to happen for another three years.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

Possibly dear Andy Ray and his friends brought this quiet system to the attention of the wrong people and Philip was told to start planning something else. It takes a year or two for these things to filter in academe, as you know. If so, Philip would never admit it for obvious reasons.

I don't know how Philip would want to fund the system, whether as a non-profit or for-profit entity. I'm guessing he would opt for non- profit because many of the groups on his server are college students and faculty.

As has been noted many times, not much on the Net is free any more. I wouldn't mind paying a little to keep this board going, especially if the extra features are added. Philip has demonstrated the longevity factor we're interested in and with a new system there might not be so much down time.

I think this is good news.

-- Anonymous, December 18, 2001

I wonder if we can just hang on here for now, then, being sure that each of us takes responsibility for copying posts/threads that we want when we see them. (I'm already doing that when I remember!)

-- Anonymous, December 18, 2001

Yep, that's about what I had in mind. I appreciate all the info about alternative sites--we may yet need them, but if Greenspun comes through, well, this is comfortable. If we start paying a little, Philip might even start letting us know ahead of time when the thing is down for service.

-- Anonymous, December 18, 2001

We may still have to move temporarily if the server goes offline for awhile. If we end up back to EZ, I'm going to invest in stronger spam filters. I have rec'd over 100 pieces of spam in the last several days. And, yes, I read the article that says it's going to get worse.

I didn't mind researching the names of free boards. The search brought home how fewer in number the free boards are now than there were seven months ago, when I last looked.

-- Anonymous, December 18, 2001

Old Git and Meemur,

If Philip starts to charge for the service, he'll have a few more headaches. Currently, he can pretty much bring down the system anytime that he wants/needs to, and there isn't much we can do about it. If the system crashes on a weekend, it currently gets rebooted whenever they notice it.

If he were to charge, he would have the added responsibilities of keeping the system up. That means coming in on weekends to reboot the system if/when it crashes. I can't see him going to this effort unless it were $$$ benefitial to him.

Just my thoughts,

apoc

-- Anonymous, December 18, 2001

Yep, right, apoc. It looks as if he'll charge based on bandwidth. Lucianne's server is down once a week for about ten minutes; perhaps with new gimickry, Greenspun's site will be the same. Also, I'm sure he would set up an alarm system so that he (or a minion) wouldn't have to stay on-site, just go in when there was a problem. Philip is still an MIT prof, far as I know, and thus has access to a large pool of cheap student labor. I think what we're looking at is better the devil you know, etc. We'll just have to wait and look at what Philip proposes.

It also means, I think, that he will find a good excuse to delete little or never used forums, like the old TB.

-- Anonymous, December 18, 2001