Re: announcing the Gentoo Server Project

On Fri, 2003-07-25 at 11:48, Kurt Lieber wrote: 
> Right now, Wade is the only other member of the project.  We need to change
> that. :)  If you're interested in participating, please contact either
> myself or (for a faster response) Wade at [email protected].

I'd like to volunteer to contribute to the server project. 

> Please include a general description of what area(s) you are interested in
> helping out with and what skills you can bring to the table.

[I've Copied the sysadmin list because most of you don't know who I am,
and I thought I should introduce myself.]

I've been lurking on this list for a little while, and using Gentoo for
about a year now. Like many, I'm a Debian refugee (in recent terms) but
a long time Unix and Linux user. I've a somewhat unusual background in
that I have been using Unix since the mid 80s AND have been a Infantry
Officer, having served in the Canadian Army. I spent the past few years
being responsible for running medium-large production platforms in a
24/7 environment in both corporate and non-profit environments. [I've
got a bit of a bio posted at
http://www.operationaldynamics.com/about/andrew/ if you're interested].

So, I like to think I've some idea of what the nature of the problem of
running a large multi machine platform. One of the things that annoyed
me about the corporate environments that I have worked in was that it
was a given that we would be running Solaris. Much as I respect the
degree of stability that Solaris exhibits on Sun hardware, I couldn't
help but think that using Solaris was a step back after having been in
the third generation Linux distribution environment. Compared to the
ease of updating a Debian system (apt-get) or a Gentoo one (emerge), it
seemed like I was back in the dark ages. 

But here's the catch - being able to quickly push critical applications,
that's brilliant. Having the system lurch frequently from working to
not-working, that's not so cool. I suspect that trying to catch the
right balance between these things will be the central challenge of the
gentoo-server effort.

One of the points that is frequently missed by many Linux developers is
that Linux runs on more than just a single desktop with a single user.
This is an understandable bias, but nevertheless it leads to it being
difficult to get changes which would benefit larger environments made.
The Linux kernel teams have evolved to large environments - I hope that
this project will help at least this distro make the evolution as well.

Making it easier to administer production ("server") environments is one
of my chief interests, and the foundation of the company I am building.
One of the major reasons I switched to Gentoo was because, at its gut
level, Gentoo seemed to offer a better approach to real world problems
than the others do. [Debian people don't like it when I say that. They
think Debian stable is everything. <sigh>. Indeed, I find it notable
that IMHO Gentoo, bleeding edge as it is, will make a better foundation
for a stable production system than Debian stable does].

Regardless of whether or not you would like contributions from me, I
want to offer my support and appreciation of yet another indication that
Gentoo is going in a great direction.

Feel free to say hi anytime - I hang out on freenode, nick afcowie.

Cheers,

AfC

-- 
Managing Director
Operational Dynamics Consulting Pty Ltd
http://www.operationaldynamics.com/

Chairman of the Program Committee and Member of the Board of Directors
Shad International
http://www.shad.ca/

Secretary
Linux Australia
http://www.linux.org.au/

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