Meeting Notes - BLU/AIP, Wed 19 Jan 2000

Meeting Notes

Taken by David Kramer

Announcements
MS licensing W2K
If you license W2K you have to purchase an internet kit and a DAL (Domain Access License) and a SAL (Service Access License, monthly fee)
A link will be posted from AIP's site.
AIP
AIP will be holding their meeting on a different night so we can be members of both.
http://boston.us.association.org
Future meetings
February- Photo editing with Gimp
March- Apache/php/mysql
April- Eric Raymond
Shore.net- Rich Brown
Shared a house with Richard Stallman, and that's what got him into geekdom.
Worked at DEC for a while.
Talked about the evolution of free software, Richard Stallman, Free Software Foundation.
Talked about Linus, who started out writing a terminal emulator and ended up writing a compiler then an operating system.
Now that Linux is pretty mature, will open source diminish in favor of commercial development?
1994 Apache published as an extension of ncsa httpd
Andover.net- Bruce Twickler Pres/CEO,Kurt (developer), Josh Freeman(Open Source community relations)
Named andover.net because Bruce lives in Andover, and the company originally was run from his house
In business for 8 years
Transmeta announcement- Crusoe processor
Very low power/low heat via LongRun power management
Code morphing technology
X86 compatibility
Started out selling software
They own /., freecode, freshmeat, gifworks, and thinkgeek
They make money from advertising, ecommerce (thinkgeek), corporate services (working on it).
Josh has written a paper showing how using open source tools is actually a better option for support than commercial software, because
peer review produces better software
more people trying to fix it
You can fix it yourself.
Also more likely to be multiplatform, so you're not tied to one vendor.
Big problem with Linux takeover in corporations is Office software compatibility
Applixware is extremely close, and stays updated with MS's format changes.
server51 freshmeat.net- box for open source development
Each project will have a listserve
/. runs on six or so Intel debian boxes
1 for images, 1 for mysql, a few from static content, 1 for ads
mysql supports 256 max concurrent connections, so apache is throttled down to 65 max concurrent. They are working with the MySql group on transaction processing and scalability. These changes will become part of the main product.
They used a load-balanced switch, but it didn't work for them, so now they use dns round robin.
Other companies are offering pay-per-question support and advice. Andover is thinking of scaling this to an online support interface for companies that contract the service. They can also offer filtered news and announcements.
Also looking into open source project management and matchmaking like sourceexchage.
Kurt says the desktop market is not worth fighting for. Game machines, corporate backend, and embedded systems are where linux will succeed.
Q+A after talks
What's happening with bandwidth
Everyone is building colocation space
Big transatlantic pipe from here to Ireland in a year or two
The last mile is going to take a lot longer.
Announcements
Lucent is moving Inferno (what is it? Communications server?) to a private group in a semi-open environment.
!!!!!Beowulf class 3:00pm tomorrow bldg 66-144.
http://www.bursys.com has a very portable Intel box with 2-4 PCI slots, etc. Made to fix 4-across in a rack
128MB 500celeron, 9GB IDE, floppy, $2K
No UL rating for the box as a whole
Gayle Valenport old Taus Corp is a sysadmin company
Everybody is hiring.
Next installfest at Bell Atlantic Marlboro
Next MIT swapmeet third Sunday in April
AIP next meeting fourth Wednesday of February

Who's Who

Gary Trujillo of AIP

Rich Braun of Shore.Net

Bruce Twickler of Andover.Net

Joshua Freeman of Andover.Net

Kurt Gray of Andover.Net