Topic: Its True E-Smith dies with RedHat

[Andy Parkinson]

Shouldn't  Sourceforge  be the way to go for any future releases. contribs.org could still be the project home page but then there would be all of the mirrors that are part of sourceforge which contribs.org cannot supply (I assume).  I'd like to take the opportunity to thank all of the Mitel guys for SME. I have about 50 servers in the wild that I support and they give me very little grief. Many small businesses have benefited from not being tied into  Microsoft, and the SME server has allowed me to convert many sceptical people to Linux. It has allowed me to put Mailservers into schools and colleges which otherwise would have to do without due to budget constraints. It gives me easy secure remote access to customers via SSH and has saved me many miles of travelling.  I think this project is too important to be allowed to die. There is nothing else out there that comes close to SME.  I don't want to spend more of my customers money lining Bill Gate's pockets.  

Andy Parkinson

[SloopJohnB]

E-Smith doesn't have to die! I to have several of these in the field and love the simplicity of the web and the command line admin structure.

I am willing to help support the effort to maintain this great product, even if it envolves donating money to help pay for the costs of keeping this great distro from falling off the edge of the earth!

It would seem that Mitel could support and promote the e-smith website and the development of e-smith in the same ways as IBM has partnered with Redhat...??? It's just a thought though.

What can we do in this forum to help keep e-smith alive??

SloopJohnB

[JeffC]

Howdy,

Contribs.org is originally my baby, and while the team has some pride of ownership, we don't believe it's a perfect site by any means.  But it is cogent to say that while contribs has been up it is averaging about 300K hits per month and over 20Gig of bandwidth usage.  

I find it interesting that none of the folks that have been complaining in this thread about contribs.org has offered to help redesign or mangage it, or has volunteered in any way.  Contribs is run as a volunteer effort with a huge amount of help from RequestedDeletion and virtually no one else.

I supply the server, storage, backup, bandwidth, maintenance, bug fixes, and personally have entered over 300 links to hotows, contribs etc.

There is a forum on contribs to report dead links that has a total of 17 posts in it.  Who are you folks reporting these dead links to?  It certainly isn't us :>

To those of you who believe that contribs was started without a reason, please go back about a year and try to find a contrib or howto that wasn't hosted on the Mitel site.  While there was a lot of complaining at that time, only contribs.org stepped up to try and solve the problems.

Volunteers to host?  Good.  I can easily cancel one of my T1s if I don't host contribs.  Please order the extra bandwidth you'll need as soon as possible.  Sourceforge?  Great idea!  Where will you put your links to offsite contribs?  

I don't mean to sound bitter here, but where are all of the good ideas and volunteers when it comes time to put money, effort and time where the flames are.

We welcome any constructive comments, and yes, we'd be happy for your suggestions and your time to redesign the site to be more "professional".

You have my email address, let's see how many of you actually volunteer to help.  You will be very welcome.

-jeff

[Del]

Hi JeffC,
Why don't you set up a PayPal account for donations? Then those of us (like myself) who can't help technically can help financially. Just  a thought.
Regards,
Del

[JeffC]

Thanks Del,

We have resisted the temptation to capitalize on the traffic we have and sell banner ads like Sourceforge or popups like so many other sites.

We don't do anything commercial on the site vecause we want to give something back to the distro that we also use and support for our clients.  In the next week or so as we migrate the forums we're expecting to almost double our traffic.  

Our plans are to keep this site non-commercial as long as it is possible.  However, your suggestion about PayPal donations sounds viable.  We'll give it some thought.

-jeff

[guestHH]

Hi all,

reading through this thread, we see some very good ideas and good comments. And you are absolutely right about contribs.org, it's not perfect yet.
contribs.org is not yet prepared for a big task like we are all talking about, but that is just the front side (www side) whilest on the backside we are really putting in the effort to get things done like you all want it to be in good coorporation with Mitel staff. Therefore we really appreciate you all comments and suggestions.

So while contribs.org is getting ready to serve you all, please continue to give your appreciated feedback.

Btw, contribs.org could really need the experience of the above posters, so please contact us at staff@contribs.org and we would love to have you aboard.

on behalf of contribs.org
guestHH

[SloopJohnB]

I would buy a hat or T-Shirt if you went commercial!! Ok but if not, I would still donate using Paypal...


SloopJohnB

[John Willby]

I tried emailing that address to offer some help but it bounced - was going to offer to help with the web site in some small way.

Maybe RequestedDeletion Wong you would like to mail me and make some suggestions about what I can do to help.

Even if its just going through the links and reporting all the dead stuff.

[guestHH]

Thanks John W., the mail won't bounce anymore

contribs.org is looking into what 'organisational' changes to our frontside we need to make due to the wishes of the community.
If that is clear, there will be a list of tasks.

Anybody who wants to help out in a way, please mail staff@contribs.org.

Thanks for your patience, comments and ideas.

on behalf of contribs.org
guestHH

[Paul]

I will back up the fact that contribs.org is VERY willing to listen to us.  I made a suggestion and within a few hours somebody over there made a change.

These guys a very willing to make contribs.org into a workable site.

Some people are excellent at writing code but need help with the artistic side of a web site.  Others are pure artists but can't write code.

I, unfortunately, have neither.  I do however have $$ and some good ideas.  Please give us (without talent) a way to make monetary contributions.

Thanks,

Paul

[Stefan Braunstein]

Charlie Brady wrote:

> Please join the devinfo mailing list for that discussion.
> Discussions work much better on mailing lists than they do on
> BBs.

And what about a news group?  I prefer writing in news groups instead of BBs or mailing lists.  Both (or even all three) could even be combined.

I know, there is a french news group for E-Smith/SME, but no english one or german (which I would prefer ).

Maybe someone can setup an extra news server for groups regarding SME.

just my two Euro-Cent.

Stefan

[guestHH]

Paul,

Thx for the offer. Other community members also wanted to donate in a monetary way.

contribs.org is taking these kinds of contributions in considereation too, but before we do accept monetary contributions, contribs.org wants to make sure that we are all set up right to cope with it wisely.

on behalf of contribs.org
guestHH

[ChS(Christophe)]

Hi there :
1 Great thanks to all former e-smith now Mitel's guys. This was the distribution to make me crazy in love with Linux. I used it since version 4.12 (remember these old times ?)
Well, we are a few froggies over here using it and loving it. Grand Pa, for example made the first steps of helping any french guy to translate and install his own version, designed to fit his needs. Could we now contribute to the french versions ...  and else   Andy Parkinson wrote:
>
> Shouldn't  Sourceforge  be the way to go for any future
> releases. contribs.org could still be the project home page
> but then there would be all of the mirrors that are part of
> sourceforge which contribs.org cannot supply (I assume).  I'd
> like to take the opportunity to thank all of the Mitel guys
> for SME. I have about 50 servers in the wild that I support
> and they give me very little grief. Many small businesses
> have benefited from not being tied into  Microsoft, and the
> SME server has allowed me to convert many sceptical people to
> Linux. It has allowed me to put Mailservers into schools and
> colleges which otherwise would have to do without due to
> budget constraints. It gives me easy secure remote access to
> customers via SSH and has saved me many miles of travelling.
> I think this project is too important to be allowed to die.
> There is nothing else out there that comes close to SME.  I
> don't want to spend more of my customers money lining Bill
> Gate's pockets.
>
> Andy Parkinson

[Marc]

Ah oui! les cousins Français avec papi e-smith...

The question is if Red Hat is discontinuing their development on Linux Red-Hat 9.0, On which Linux distribution should an e-smith continuation run with?

[Paul]

Marc,

That has become the question of all questions!!!

ClarkConnect's website states that it will continue to use redhat/fedora.  I think this might ba a mistake as fedora will become very developemental.  There is already a dozen updates and another dozen apps in testing.

Fedora Quote:

Availability of updates should not be misconstrued as support for anything other than continued development and innovation of the code base.

End Quote:

We need something a bit more stable.  Can we use the REL3 code base?

Just a thought,

Paul