Re: Status

Roland John Turner (rjturner@nospam.socs.uts.edu.au)
Fri, 27 Oct 1995 11:24:12 +1000 (EST)

The following is a repost of an article by Anand, with his questions
answered, CC'd to the ProgSoc list at his own suggestion.

In email to system@nospam.progsoc.uts.edu.au Anand Kumria wrote:
>
>
> Can anyone tell me :
>
> 1. When orgo, homer and lister are expected to become available to the
> general membership.

I doubt that anyone can give you a firm answer. Phil and Anton are
crawling forward as time allows. I think Orgo will be operational in
the nearish future, however its exact role and composition have yet to be
determined. At least one of the remaining Sun machines should become
operational a little after that. Perhaps the Muds/MOOs will be moved there.
Again, the exact composition and role of these machines has yet to be
determined. The limiting factor is really the time taken to do this
stuff - particularly given the approach of exams.

Why do you ask? Do you have a particular interest in any of these machines?

> 2. What types of macines these are and what their purposes will be.

As above. Yet to be determined. From memory, Orgo is a Sun4, the other
two are Sun3s. The rest of their composition is yet to be determined, although
it's pretty certain that Orgo will have the new 4Gb SCSI disk in it.

> 3. Why progsoc does not run its own DNS server

No incredibly good reason. When (if) we need to move it, we will. At present
Sbug is happy to maintain it and there are no compelling reasons to move it.

The previous fiasco with the 2 months that it took Ftoomsh's change of
address to propogate worldwide will not happen again. Sbug had made a
small, but easy mistake. There is no guarantee that the transition would
have been trouble free had we been running our own DNS. Odds on we would
have had the same problem.

> 4. When the draft AUP will be updated will comments received

When time allows. Phil?

> 5. When (if) the final AUP will be submitted to ITD and/or other ISPs as
> required.

Likewise.

> 6. The list of "supported"/"condoned" MUDs/talkers/other.

Hehehe - I'm running away from that one. Phil?

> Note, the reason I ask number 3 is because if number 5 takes place I
> would (hope) anticpate ProgSoc becoming part of the main UTS backbone.

Not neccessarily. We are NOT connected as though we were part of SoCSNet
now. The fact that our datagrams happen to pass SoCSNet is immaterial.

Certainly, when we were functionally part of SoCSNet, things were a
little different. We have distanced ourselves from SoCS to help them
distance themselves from us. This reduces SoCS's embarrasment when our
users misbehave which in turn should reduce the incidence of such
events as led to Anand's previous denial of access to Ftoomsh. Again,
there is no guarantee that, had we not appeared to be part of SoCS
that Anand's account would not have been locked in the way that it was.

I believe that we are better off staying connected as we are for the
forseeable future.

It is my impression that Anand is overly concerned with the risks associated
with our current means of connection to UTSNet (our router is currently
plugged into SoCSNet) as a result of his being denied access to his
account in the aftermath of the UQ incident. I appreciate his concern
but do not believe that it is sufficient grounds to go through the
expense and difficulty of shifting to UTSNet.

I suspect that these comments will prompt Anand to deny this and, if
the ProgSoc list is up to its usual standards, a flame will ensue,
however I do not want to appear to be answering questions that
haven't been explicitly asked.

> And if that were the case, I would rather have ProgSoc's DNS under
> ProgSoc control ... it makes it easier to stuff up when changing IP
> addresses.

!!!!

I don't think that you meant quite what you said. :-)

If you are indeed referring to the delayed propogation of Ftoomsh's new
IP address, this would have been no easier had we been administering
the DNS ourselves - in fact it would have been a little harder in some
respects.

> If I don't receive a response within the next 72 hours or so,
> I'll re-post this to the general list ...

Whether you intended this or not, this reads as a threat. Please do NOT
adopt a siege mentality when dealing with ProgSoc's administrators. We
are not your servants. We are a bunch of people who are giving what
little of our own time we can afford to advance ProgSoc. Your questions
do not appear to be of an urgent nature, consequently, a 72 hour response
request is NOT reasonable, particularly given the approach of exams.

I have included this comment to keep the membership's perspective clear
on any of your future actions or comments.

> feel free to send a CC: to the
> general list if you are able to answer any of these questions.

Done.

> Anand.

- Raz #

rjturner@nospam.socs.uts.edu.au

"It often upsets a man's God fantasies to have (Misquoted? from )
someone shoot down one of his helicopters." (Ben Elton's "Stark" )