Re: Anybody Out There

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@access.digex.net>]

>        I see your point now.  I think I have to be a little
>        more explicit.  I am a professional Unix systems
>        administrator, Internet guru of sorts, currently
>        employed by a major ISP in San Francisco Bay area.
>
>        The site I had in mind is run jointly by a friend of mine
>        and myself, physically located in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
>        It's a Linux box with almost nothing to do, other than
>        few people fetching their email.  I have full control
>        over this system, meaning that I can set up WWW pages,
>        allocate FTP space, run a mailing list software, _and_
>        grant few logins with the access to the above.  The box
>        happened to be hooked up to the ethernet of the local
>        provider, they are on T1.  (Personally, I don't expect
>        traffic on all the Lojban resources nearly as heavy as
>        needed to justify T1).


I think I need Cowan to evaluate this - i am not sure what-all it means for
relative cost/connectivity compare to the paid Digex site, the free
and totally controlled Finland site, and the other offer with some details
we have received (from someone who is a researching medical doctor at one
of the major Illinois universities, and can get us space using his highly
stable tenured position, probably with Telnet account control - but I don't
know enough to compare the options.)

>        Of course, we all depend on our providers.  That's why
>        they register domain names, any reasons why "lojban.org"
>        is not taken yet? 

Costs money (I hear it is $100 every 2 years), and we don't have a way to
make use of it, since we are scattered on several ISPS, using dial-up
accounts.  (I haven't ever bothered to learn enough to set up a PPP account
and still use good old "mail", and text-based lynx, and ALWAYS edit off-line
if I am not straight-typing a mail response - I abhor unix editors.)
Cowan is an old-time wizard who can do all kinds of things on a system,
but doesn't have one of his own to play with (but he knows enoughto discuss
all this stuff intelligently with you), and he also has a good idea of my
own capabilities and limitations in dealing with cross-net management.

>        Speaking about mailing lists, I can set up a kind that
>--More--
>        can be managed remotely, by email.


We are managing Lojban List by email.  But there are things that happen that
occasionally need someone with direct access to the software and files at
a systems level ( a few weeks ago someone subscribed with a "forged" cutesy
handle in their "From" line, which ended up generating a mailing address with
embedded spaces.  The list management commands would not parse any command to
manually delete the guy, and it took going in and manually editting the guy
out of the file (which I think we are capable of doing - but if we make a
mistake in the file, we kill the list and our own capaility to manage it,
so I avoid tyring it).
>        I see.  Again, registering the domain name with InterNIC
>        will be of great value for the matter of convenience
>        (and promotion, btw).

That's the type of thing to do in the future, when we can cope wiht the
results of promotion (i.e when we have something to sell, and I have time
to respond to orders - I am backogged months on processing snail mail,
including money sent for orders and donations.)

>  It's hard to get full control
>        over some resources for free without depending on
>        someone's good will.  What I can offer is well-connected
>        underloaded host on the net, maybe not the fastest
>        hardware in the world, but certainly good enough to
>        handle all the Lojban resources, with granting access
>        to virtually anything on this box (no root password,
>        sorry:).  Besides, I can help with Web scripting and
>        any other techical aspects of running the presentation
>        and access software. 

Thanks for the offer, and I'll see that John looks at it.  We will probably
consult with you regardless of what option we choose, since good and
knowledgeable help is valuable.

lojbab