Volume 20, Number 11 - November 2004
| Next Meeting |
|---|
Thursday, November 18, 7:00 p.m.
|
Contents:
The CACTUS Newsletter is a monthly publication,
distributed to our members and other interested
people. Visit the CACTUS Newsletter on the web at http://www.cactus.org/CACTUS/Newsletter/.
There you will find archives of back issues, as well as instructions on
how to subscribe to the email distribution.
The next CACTUS meeting will be held on Thursday, November 18, 2004 at
7:00pm (doors open 6:30pm for pizza and informal discussion), in the
auditorium of UT Applied Research Laboratories. (See end of newsletter
for directions to the facility).
by Lindsay Haisley
Eric
Raymond in Austin, once again!
Noted author, speaker and Open Source activist Eric Raymond is coming back
to Austin again this month. Eric's visit this time is sponsored jointly by
CACTUS and the UT Austin School of Information, for whom he will be the John
P. Schneider Honorary Colloquia Series speaker. The presentation will be
called "After the Revolution -- Coping with Open Source Success".
Eric's talk will be on Monday, Nov. 29th from 7 to 9 PM in the the AVAYA
Auditorium (ACE 2.302) in the Applied Computational Engineering and Sciences
Building. The ACE building is on the southeast corner of 24th and Speedway.
Since this is an evening program, parking (which one always has to consider
when going to the UT campus) shouldn't be a great problem. Eric generally
likes to go out and eat and visit with friends after a talk, and we can
expect that this visit will be no exception.
Many thanks to John Quarterman who helped put all the pieces together for
Eric's visit, and to Don Turnbull with the UT School of Information who did
the nitty-gritty work of scheduling and room reservation for us.
You really need to put this one on your calendars, especially if you've
never heard Eric speak before. If you have, then I don't need to remind you
to do so. Eric speaks without the help of slides or props of any sort, and
holds his audiences in thrall by the force of his wit and incisive
understanding of the the open source software movement.
Eric is the author of the book "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", the
title essay in which was instrumental in the decision in the late 90s by
Netscape to release code for their browser into the public domain as open
source software. This decision eventually resulted in the development and
release of the excellent Mozilla browser, and more recently it's offspring
Firefox, which is taking the Internet world by storm. In 1998, Eric
released to the world a pair of Microsoft internal documents defining Open
Source software in general, and Linux in particular, as signifigant threats
to Microsoft's future revenue, and exploring ways to counter the threats.
These have become known as the "Halloween Documents" live on in infamy.
Eric's other accomplishments and publications are too numerous to mention,
however you can find out more about Eric at http://www.catb.org/esr/press.html.
CACTUS Membership
We would like to thank Mike Cheselka for renewing
his membership.
To renew your membership, please send check or money order
payable to CACTUS ($30/yr for regular membership and $100/yr
for corporate sponsorship):
CACTUS
PO BOX 9786
Austin, TX 78766-9786
You can also pay in person at the general meetings. Please direct
any inquiries or address changes to membership [at] cactus <dot> org.
-->
by Lindsay
Haisley
Gifthorse
Randy Zagar is making steady progress on setting up our Newisys box which
will be deployed at Inflow when it's ready for prime-time. I understand
that the box will be called gifthorse.cactus.org. Randy has
given us this update on his work on the box:
"I'm upgrading the Newisys box this week to Fedora Core 3 (x86_64). I
have a network install server at home now, and it should only take me an
hour to do the upgrade.
"Fedora Core 3 uses the 2.6.9 kernel and includes the SELinux
extensions. SELinux is a new security feature, originally developed by
NSA, that lets you "compartmentalize" a service (or process) so that it
only operates within a predefined "role". For instance, this would
allow us to run Seti [at] Home in its own secure "container" and avoid
exposing the rest of the system to potentially hostile code.
"There should be around 20-GB of storage available for home-directories
and other stuff.
"Testing of Dynamic DNS is mostly complete, and it looks like we will be
able to support members' home systems as DDNS clients (e.g. Ray
Solanik's home system would resolve as solanik.cactus.org)."
Randy says he sees no reason the box shouldn't be up and running by
Thanksgiving.
In other news, I've been noting, as admin for the
jobs [at] lists <dot> cactus <dot> org mailing list, that we're getting a substantial
number of posts from recruiters and others looking to hire Unix talent.
CACTUS maintains this list is a community resource, open to members and
non-members alike, so if you're looking for work in Unix or a related
software field, you may want to sign up on the list. You can do this by
visiting http://lists.cactus.org/mailman/listinfo/jobs
and signing up to receive list traffic.
| President: |
Lindsay Haisley (fmouse at fmp.com) |
|---|
| Treasurer: |
Johnny Long (longjy at thecb.texas.gov) |
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| Programs: |
Randy Zagar (jrzagar at cactus.org) |
|---|
| Membership: |
Luis Basto (basto at cactus.org) |
|---|
| Publicity: |
Thomas Bodine (tbodine at cactus.org) |
|---|
| Newsletter: |
Ray Solanik (solanik at cactus.org) |
|---|
| Scribe: |
Ron Roberts (ronro at bga.com) |
|---|
Members
at Large: |
Mark Scarborough (mscar at cactus.org)
M.H. Khan (mhk at cactus.org) |
|---|
Significant Contributing Sponsors
Applied Research Laboratories/University of Texas at Austin www.arlut.utexas.edu
- (Gil Kloepfer, Computer Science Division (CSD), 835-3771, gil [at] arlut <dot> utexas <dot> edu)
Onramp http://www.onr.com
- (Chad Kissinger, president, 322-9200, info [at] onr <dot> com)
- Broadband Internet access, web design and colocation
CoreNAP, L.P. www.corenap.com
- (Kenneth Smith, (512) 685-0010), kenneth [at] corenap <dot> com)
- Provides server colocation and high-speed Internet access to businesses in the Austin & central Texas area
Outserv.net, Inc. www.outserv.net
- (David Maynard,, dpm [at] outserv <dot> net)
- e-Business Operations Service Provider.
CACTUS Sponsors
BestRegistrar.com www.bestregistrar.com
- ((800) 977-3475), registrar [at] bestregistrar <dot> com)
- A top-level domain name registrar, CORE member.
Dresser - Wayne www.wayne.com
- (Steve Cox, (512) 338-8444), steve <dot> cox [at] dresser <dot> com)
- Provides instrumentation and services to the oil and energy
IBM Corporation www.ibm.com/linux/ltc/
- (George Kraft IV, (512)838-2688, gk4 [at] austin <dot> ibm <dot> com)
Journyx, Inc. www.journyx.com
- (John Madollozzo, (512)833-3274, john [at] journyx <dot> com)
- Web-based products to track time, expenses, and attendance, for project management and billing.
Prog Corp. www.cactus.org/~prog
- (David Mallis, 451-7191, prog [at] cactus <dot> org)
- Publisher of instructional materials for classroom and independent study.
Rocksteady Networks Incorporated Rocksteady Networks
- Eric White, 512-427-1319 ewhite [at] rocksteady <dot> com
Ray Solanik
- Ray Solanik, Technical Consultant
solanik [at] cactus <dot> org
Starflight Corp.,
http://www.the-spa.com/jon.roland/
- Jon Roland, jon <dot> roland [at] the-spa
- Computer consulting, management solutions, documentation, and technical
writing.
VoIPing, LLC www.voiping.com
- (Lenny Tropiano, 512-698-VOIP (8647) or Brian Sinclair 512-698-8031, info [at] voiping <dot> com)
- IT Consulting and Services, converged networks, Unix, and Voice over IP.
Veraci Inc. www.veraci.com
- Michael Shrivathsan
Friends of CACTUS
Applied Formal Methods, Inc.
- (Susan Gerhart, 794-9732, gerhart [at] cactus <dot> org)
Auspex Systems www.auspex.com
- (Paul Levine, plevine [at] auspex <dot> com
- Fastest reliable network fileservers.
Austin Code Works
- (Scott Guthery, 258-0785, info [at] acw <dot> com)
Covad/Laserlink www.covad.com
- (Chip Rosenthal)
CTG
- (Maurine Mecer, 502-0190 [FAX 502-0287])
- Professional recruiting.
Compaq Computer Corporation
(now HP)www.himalaya.compaq.com
- (Ron Boerger, 432-8000)
- Provider of scalable, high availability systems.
EDP Contract Services
- (Mark Grabenhorst, 346-1040) Professional recruiting.
Hewlett Packard www.hp.com
- (Bill Sumrall, 338-7221)
Hounix (maybe bad link )http://www.texascomputers.com/hounix/
- (Marilyn Harper)
- Houston's Unix Users Group.
Network Appliance Corporation www.netapp.com
- (Frank Mozina, fmozina [at] netapp <dot> com)
O'Keefe Search
- Professional recuiting.
Sailaway System Design
- (Chris J Johnson, 447-5243)
Schlumberger www.slb.com
- (Kathy O'Brien, obrien [at] asc <dot> slb <dot> com)
- Technical services and products in over 100 countries.
Silicon Graphics www.sgi.com
- (Don Williams, 346-9342)
Solid Systems
- (Pete Farrell, 442-2222)
Sterling Infomation Group
- (Darrell Hanshaw, 344-1005)
Sun Microsystems www.sun.com
- (Rick Taylor)
- Supplier of Unix client-server computing solutions.
Texas Internet Consulting www.tic.com
- (Smoot Carl-Mitchell, 451-6176, smoot [at] tic <dot> com)
- TCP/IP networking, Unix, and open systems standards.
Technow
- A Sun Authorized Training Center and a Hardware Reseller.
Unison Software
- (Shelley St. John, 478-0611)
- Supplier of networked systems management solutions.
UT Computer Science Department
- (Patti Spencer)
UT Computation Center
- (Mike Cerda, 471-3241, cerda [at] uts <dot> cc <dot> utexas <dot> edu)
CACTUS meets on the third Thursday of each month at the Applied Research
Labs (ARL) in the JJ Pickle Research Campus (JJ PRC). We'll meet in
the main auditorium located directly behind the guard's desk and main lobby.
Please do not show up earlier than 6:20 pm on the specified day. Enter
through the main entrance at 10000 Burnet Road for ARL:UT. Tell the guard
that you are here for the CACTUS meeting. You will be required to sign
a log book, but not required to wear a badge. The guards will direct you
to the auditorium entrance. Limited parking in the front of the building
is available, but more extensive parking is available in the large parking
lot just north of the ARL building. After 6:30 pm, all entrances to JJ
PRC, except for the Burnet Road entrance, are closed and locked. You can
still enter the parking lot in front of the ARL building. No parking tags
are necessary after 6:00 pm. See map for further details.
Online maps are available at:
As always, please leave the facility as you saw it when you arrived.
