Forget O'Reilly, Lets talk servers!

JArchibald at aol.com JArchibald at aol.com
Sun Oct 10 10:28:13 UTC 1999


All--

I am combining the response to several posts in one message. I hate to clog 
Squeak mailing list with what seems to be a question that few but me are 
interested in. My apologies to all (members.aol.com/JArchibald/sorry.wav).

My basic motive here (same as that for Smalltalk which started OOPSLA (now 
dominated by Java)), is a concern for commercial viability of Squeak. I 
realize that others may not have this same concern. This is of course 
accentuated by sale of VW from OBJS. Perhaps my concern is overdrawn: BeOS is 
still chugging along, similarly for Modula, Ada (which admittedly has 
government support) somewhat amazingly has a major community of personal 
users who are quite active, etc., etc. At one time Smalltalk was on verge of 
dying out (late '83, '84, early '85--only one really in the 'business' at 
that time was Tektronix); one thing that pulled it out was focus on 
commercial use (Digitalk, OOPSLA, competition from C++ and ObjectiveC). While 
we can 'worry' about Python, Java is the language that brings EGO (Eyes glaze 
over) to outsiders when you talk about Smalltalk.

IBM does not have a good track record with continuing support of software 
that does not bring in big bucks. I also think VA is too big (Squeak is 
getting there) and not open source. I also haven't seen a research community 
following it (though there could be one lurking still in IBM or elsewhere).

Jerry

--> dated 10/9/99 10:14:14 PM EDT, Serg at VisualNewt.com -->
<< So when is the O'Reilly Squeak book coming out? >>

I would like to know that too. Maybe we should send an E-mail to Frank 
Willison. It would be nice to see a Willison interview of Alan Kay. Anyone 
got an E-mail address for Frank Willison? I would be more than happy to 
compose E-mail to Willison (and hereby solicit comments to present to him).

--> 10/9/99 11:26:53 PM EDT, arning at charm.net -->
<< I guess there will be variations. I signed up for DSL with my local ISP 
and they seemed to be fairly flexible as to what you could do with it. 
Serving, per se, did not seem to be an issue, but overall traffic was more of 
a concern. >>

Bob,

If you don't mind my asking, what is monthly charge? I assume that is 
charm.net (though I have recently been forced to realize the distinction that 
some face (now me, I guess) between your ISP and PP (Presence Provider)).

Also, are you willing to host PWS service (for a fee)? I'm sure a "separate 
box" arrangement can be worked out. Maybe in your basement. :-} This last is 
meant as a joke, but we do have to start somewhere. Mail from 
wardrop at nbcnet.com.au (below) applies here.

--> 10/9/99 10:53:35 PM EDT, morphic at hotmail.com -->
<< I get 384Kbps for $180/month  >>

I'm not sure what the standard units are here (talk about distinction between 
Avoirdupois and metric), but services sheet from addr.com lists 4Gbyte/mo 
traffic (with 50Mbyte storage) for $9.95/mo. Assuming you didn't exceed 
traffic limits, I would imagine that would apply to supplied server 
arrangements. I don't know that _they_ offer supplied server arrangements, 
but I have seen others offering such arrangements (AWMP) for $100/mo.

--> 10/10/99 12:43:37 AM EDT, wardrop at nbcnet.com.au -->
<< Hello Jerry,

I noticed on the Squeak list that you're involved with domain hosting.
This question may show quite a bit of front, but i'm trying to
establish my own domain (in Australia), and while the DNS system is
well documented, it's less clear who allocates people IP addresses.

Would the group, who provide the ISDN connection (Telstra in my case),
allocate a static IP for me?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Yours sincerely, Simon Wardrop >>

That's an interesting question. Anyone got an answer? If the 'group' is not 
Telstra, who would it be--GaTech, UIUC, Disney, Dan Ingalls (owner of 
Squeak.org)?

----

It seems as we have the inverse of the 'Elephant' (I guess Humpty-Dumpty) 
working here. Everyone's got a piece, but we can't figure out how to put them 
together.

Thanks, all of you,
Jerry

Jerry L. Archibald
systemObjectivesIncorporated
----
Walk tall, talk Small.





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