Topic: Hosting the SME Server Project files

[smeghead]

Nice one Boris, a great offer that deserves serious consideration.

I for one have a very close affiliation with my ISP here in Australia and it may be possible to provide a similar sort of setup here in their NOC (actually sitting on the main WAIX backbone).

They currently host a mirror of the Ibiblio SME stuff which is free access for almost all Perth users.

If they have some spare rack space and I sweet talk them a bit you never know (they actually provide SME servers to some of their clients and the owner has an SME server at home!).

On the commercial front I agree with keeping the base product free for all.  To raise some $$ I like the idea of a geographic listing of SME consultants being available on the site where the consultants pay a listing fee; allows users to see who can help them locally and in person if needed.

HTH

[del]

Hi Boris,
This seems a great offer, thank you. I have not got the technical expertise to help in development but I did volunteer to help with testing etc. but I have never been approached to do anything. I think we should all look at your offer and thank you for bringing some sanity to this discussion. Contribs have done a great job so far and deserve praise for their efforts and hard work, but Contribs must either let the community know the costs involved as requested by other members or take up Boris's offer and lets move forward. Shad Lords is the only person trying to move on, I saw his excellent attempt at moving SME to Fedora on his site http://lordsfam.net We should all be helping him out and not bickering and letting this easy to install and use software disappear. I know that without SME (E-Smith) I would never have been able to get a Linux box running and actually be able to use it. I had tried Red Hat, Mandrake etc and found it all too confusing but this worked right off the CD. Just my 2 pennies worth.
Regards,
Del  

[satovey]

Hi Boris,
This seems a great offer, thank you. I have not got the technical expertise to help in development but I did volunteer to help with testing etc. but I have never been approached to do anything. I think we should all look at your offer and thank you for bringing some sanity to this discussion. Contribs have done a great job so far and deserve praise for their efforts and hard work, but Contribs must either let the community know the costs involved as requested by other members or take up Boris's offer and lets move forward. Shad Lords is the only person trying to move on, I saw his excellent attempt at moving SME to Fedora on his site http://lordsfam.net We should all be helping him out and not bickering and letting this easy to install and use software disappear. I know that without SME (E-Smith) I would never have been able to get a Linux box running and actually be able to use it. I had tried Red Hat, Mandrake etc and found it all too confusing but this worked right off the CD. Just my 2 pennies worth.
Regards,
Del  

Thanks for the Info on the SME7.0. There are already several rpms on the site to download and begin the process of converting a Redhat7.3 base SME6.01 box to a Fedora2 base SME7.0 box.

I apreciate good leadership, and SLords has shown it by taking the initiative in this endeavor. He has my vote for Project Leader and President. I have seen many posts and suggestions from people advising a Debian core distro, but I think that SLords having his SME7.0 Fedora Core in running test mode already should trump any other suggestions at this point. Not to mention, it appears that the upgrade to the SME7.0 will not need a bootup and install process, but rather a simple unistall these rpms and install these rpms, make changes to these config files and reboot the system. All of this can be automated with a well designed upgrade script.

Talk about an easy install. Comming with the SME7.0 Fedora core is apache 2.0 and smb3 and the Linux kernel-2.6.5-1.358. The 2.6 kernel by the way is faster and more efficient than the 2.4 kernel. That makes it like upgrading your processor without actually changing the processor. Faster.

I agree, the community should all get begind SLords Fedora Core 2 SME7.0. Any further discussion on a base core at this point is mute. If however, someone wants to put out a debian core as well, I don't see a problem with it. This would give users two options and they may both head in different nich directions.
One could be a streaming media setup with darwin installed, while the other is the basic server we all use today. So if someone who is able, has the gumption and fortitude, and realy wants a debiam based core, he should like SLords put one together for the community to peruse. Otherwise, get on board the Fedora Core which is already in progress.

Scott

[Anonymous]

Boris' offer as many others who have offered mirroring etc. seems like an excellent way to keep SME Open & Free & Safe.

Voluntary contributions as Boris has outlined is surely much fairer, than imposing a fee based system on the freely given, Open & Free SME NOS, some can afford to pay & some cannot.

The forums are a community effort, people around the globe freely helping other people around the globe, and one in which I as I gain understanding would wish to contribute to, but could not if I had to pay a mandatory, imposed fee.

I had a look at the SourceForge link, as this is already running then perhaps some of the load & stress can be distributed?

I thank all here, the forums & Contibs.org & E-smith of late, for helping create, develop & support a robust easy to use Network OS, that is Open Source & still remains Free Software.

I sincerely hope that these issues, can be sorted out to allow SME to continue as an Open, Free, Global community project & resource.

Cheers, Miles

[:hammer:]

Thank you Boris for your offer, I really mean that.

Folks, Boris' offer truly is in the GPL spirit, mainly keep the software free!

If we could all donate some of our server's resources to this project I am sure most of us would.

I seem to recall a high availability package somewhere that could probably help us out there.

I really am grateful to the SME package, it saved me from a MS disaster, however if the distro is going to cost me $100 per year, I have to look somewhere else.

I would not be against adding a small portion of my server's resources to a distributed cluster platform for the contribs.org website, providing that someone knows how to set one up securely.

After all, a 1%-5% hit on most servers is next to nothing, upgrades and updates would become automatic, and the website downtime would be virtually eliminated.

Integration with the cluster could be an option selected during the install process.

Sounded slick to me, anyway. FWIW  

I will check out  http://lordsfam.net/ and see what is up with Shad's 7.0 project, it sounds positively delightful.

cheers,
 

[ngomes]

Thanks to everyone who posted and voted until now, 03.07.2004,

Right now, from 2000+ members of Contribs.org this thread had 55 votes and 1036 views. From the poll results we come to the conclusion that 88% agree with  a mix of SourceForge.net (main site) + several servers provided by the Contribs.org members (mirrors).

From my point of view, the Contribs.org website should remain the SME Server "entrance point" for newbies and general public. It should provide an introduction to the SME Server (how it works, the architecture, the beneficts, ...), news from the core distro and addons/contribs developpers, and have several tutorials about basic concepts like DNS, Email, basic linux commands and docs. It also should provide the complete lists of Distro Developpers, Addons Developpers and SME Consultants/Companies all around the world.

I ask you now to all of you that can provide server mirrors to host files (iso's, contribs, manuals, rpms, srpms) or to host a copy of the Contribs.org website to make your offers on this thread providing the following information:
- Name
- Location/country
- Bandwith provided
- Space provided
- Type of hosting (http, ftp, rsync for files and webserver for the Contribs.org website)

Finally, a word for Shad Lords: Thank YOU for your visions and efforts. I have my hope that other SME developpers will join you on your task.

Yours,
Nuno Gomes