[Seattle-editorial] Re: [Seattletech] URGENT: Your IMC site
Jason Reep
jasonr at speakeasy.net
Tue Nov 4 17:16:14 PST 2003
having re-read Joseph's email:
> At the IMC Core meeting last night, we did consense on migrating to
> MIR. We will bring this up at the general meeting as a formal
> proposal, short and sweet I hope, to migrate immediately.
I now see that there is an intention for a proposal to go be made to the
general meeting. so, sorry for jumping the gun on that.
> ok, first: let's hear it for MIR! and the encouraging communcation
> that we're getting from Portland and various global techies regarding
> help with the process. more on that later.
>
> 2nd: um, i'm confused. I saw from Joseph's email that there was a
> "core" meeting last night. last I heard, there was an
> editorial/tech/general meeting scheduled for tonight. the tech
> discussion was set to happen at 5pm which both stephani and I were
> not going to be able to make, but that's where it was left. I got no
> response to the mail I sent saying that I wasn't going to be able to
> make a meeting that early and could we do it over the weekend. so,
> instead the decision was consensed upon by the "core" when, at least
> according to the last announcement, there was a meeting still
> scheduled to discuss it tonight?
>
> i'm happy that it was discussed and people like it, but I just think
> that the decision making at the IMC is a little weird right. were
> previous procedure to be followed, a proposal would be made by the
> editorial WG to the general collective to adopt MIR. I am the last
> one to suggest that a debate shoud be encouraged but I would imagine
> that there wouldn't be much dissent.
>
> in solidarity, Jason
Gentry Lange wrote:
> Everyone agreed at last night's meeting... MIR it is.
>
> Gentry
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: seattle-editorial-bounces at lists.indymedia.org
> [mailto:seattle-editorial-bounces at lists.indymedia.org]On Behalf Of Jason
> Reep
> Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 10:47 AM
> To: Seattletech; Seattle Editorial
> Cc: vsea75 at hotmail.com; kellan at protest.net; brandf at speakeasy.net;
> Brandon Fouts; m2 at resist.ca; afterthought at riseup.net
> Subject: [Seattle-editorial] Re: [Seattletech] URGENT: Your IMC site
>
>
> Ok folks, it's official.
>
> I propose MIR as the new code base for the Seattle IMC website because I
> like the look and feel of other sites using it most and we have more
> possibility of local or regional support for it than for SFActive.
> According to Kellan, there are methods available to make our archives
> available as part of the new website.
>
> I'd like to try to solicit the help of the Portland IMC techies and
> Kellan in the migration process and in the mean time put the call out
> for more locals who are interested in getting involved on the long term.
> It seems like there is volunteer energy already waiting to be tasked
> with website design tasks. How do the different tasks involved with
> code migration need to be broken down? Can we set up the new website
> with default templates and change the design (look) after the fact or
> does it need to be a more integrated process? What are the hardware
> requirements? Stefani or Sheri, where do we (the Seattle IMC) stand in
> regards to our DSL service with Speakeasy? Hasn't the bill been going up?
>
> my 2 cents.
>
> -jason
>
>
> imc-tech at lists.indymedia.org wrote:
>
>
>>Dear $IMC tech contact,
>>
>>This message contains *URGENT* time-critical information that you and
>>your IMC absolutely have to act on, or the IMC-tech group will be
>>forced to make some decisions for you. Please read this message
>>completely. We regret we have not had more time to contact you further
>>in advance.
>>
>>Topics contained in this email:
>>o Background: Stallman is going away
>> . Whats going to be done?
>> . Whats the impact on me and my IMC?
>> . Why do we need to migrate the code also?
>> . What are our options for migration?
>> . How much time do we have to decide on a new code-base?
>> . What do I need to do?
>>o Great! We wanted to redesign the site anyways, can you help with that?
>>o Donations needed!
>>
>>* Background: Stallman is going away
>>
>>Stallman, the primary webserver for Indymedia is losing[1] its
>>colocation on DECEMEBER 1st. You are being contacted because your IMC
>>website is on this machine. Free hosting ends DECEMBER 1st, with the
>>option of keeping the box at its current location until JANUARY 1st
>>for $250/mo, at which point, the plug gets pulled. This does not come
>>as a complete surprise as we've long known that the centralization
>>represented in Stallman, while instrumental in some of IMC's rapid
>>growth and accessibility is also a vulnerability.
>>
>>We have been working over the last year and a half to decentralize our
>>hosting to minimize such a problem. We have done good hard work, at
>>one high-point stallman hosted over 82 IMC sites, now there are
>>currently only about 30 sites remaining on Stallman using a sustained
>>160kB/sec of traffic, the largest being www.indymedia.org.
>>
>>In order to prevent something like this happening again, and to
>>continue to embrace our decentralized model, we strongly urge local
>>collectives to be looking into hosting options for themselves, or into
>>allying with other regional IMCs for hosting. Similarly we feel that
>>it is important that each local collective, to the extent of its
>>available resource take over maintence, up keep, and migration of its
>>website. IMC-Tech will try to migrate sites remaining on Stallman to
>>a new server, and a new codebase, but we can't guarentee there won't
>>be downtime, performance loss, or even, worst case, lost data.
>>
>>
>>* What is going to be done?
>>
>>PANIC! OH NO! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO! AGGH CRISIS!! PANIC!@ OMG!!!!
>>ITS THE FBI, WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!!! RUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!! CALL UP
>>AUNT MAY, TELL HER TO DUST THE BOMB SHELTER, GO BUY ALL THE RAMEN,
>>SALTED BEEF, AND HARDTACK FROM THE STORE!!@!#@#!@#
>>
>>Don't panic, we'll do that for you. We've got a number of options that
>>we are pursuing to relocate the Stallman hosted sites, we've secured
>>replacement hardware, and have a number of alternative colocation
>>options available that we are working on. We are coordinating things
>>on this[2] wiki page, and also on IRC.
>>
>>* Whats the impact on me and my IMC?
>>
>>Two things impact you, as a hosted site on Stallman. One is that we
>>have to move your site, the second is that we actually have to
>>*migrate* your site to a different code-base. Your site is one of the
>>sites that is running very old legacy IMC code, called "Active". In
>>order to move your site, we need to migrate it to a different, more
>>modern code-base.
>>
>>* Why do we need to migrate the code also?
>>
>>The reasons why you need to switch are the following:
>>
>> . we cannot support Active code, nobody knows how to, and nobody
>> wants to
>>
>> . the active code is not being developed any more
>>
>> . we consider active to be a waste of resources (human, database,
>> disk) in comparision with the newer alternatives
>>
>> . the currently hosted sites on stallman all are various different
>> revisions of the Active code, unknown versions, half upgraded,
>> half patched in some places, completely hacked in others, this
>> makes dealing with these sites a major pain
>>
>> . the more modern code is easier to manage, is nicer on our hardware
>> and bandwidth (it makes much more effective use of our resources)
>>
>> . most people think the other more modern code options are more
>> visually appealing from the outset
>>
>> . the more modern code options make administrative and technical tasks
>> far more easier and obvious: customizing the look and feel, dealing
>> with newswire spam, etc.
>>
>> . the newer code has many more delightful features, such as categories,
>> templating, multilingual support, calendaring, searching,
>> syndication, most importat, they are being currently worked on
>> and supported!
>>
>>* What are our options for migration?
>>
>>There are three alternatives to Active that we will be migrating sites
>>to, Mir, SF-Active, or Dada. There are some other options available,
>>but we have chosen these because we feel they are the most supported
>>and we have the knowledge and resources at our disposal to migrate to
>>these. These are the only alternatives that we will be migrating to
>>from Stallman.
>>
>>You are welcome to pick something else and set up your own server and
>>migrate your site, but it has to be done before our deadline. If you
>>want to do something different, please have a look at various
>>options[3] available, also you can see people's opinions and
>>experiences with the different code bases here[4].
>>
>>* How much time do we have to decide on a new code-base?
>>
>>Unfortunately, not much time. Due to the time critical nature of this
>>issue, we have to make the deadline of two weeks from the date of this
>>email. We are in the process of setting up servers to migrate your
>>site to, and if you have not chosen a replacement code-base at the end
>>of this deadline, we will be forced to migrate your site to whichever
>>we chose among Dada, Sf-active and Mir according to the resources
>>available at our discretion.
>>
>>* What do I need to do?
>>
>>You need to talk to your IMC collective and make a decision about
>>which code-base you want to migrate to. We will work with you to
>>transfer your existing content to the new code, and help you get
>>everything up trying to limit any significant down-time in the
>>process. Once you have decided, please send an email to
>>imc-tech at lists.indymedia.org.
>>
>>We *will* move all IMCs hosted on stallman off of old Active, so if
>>nobody from your IMC ever responds, at some point we will make a
>>choice for you.
>>
>>* Great! We wanted to redesign the site anyways, can you help with that?
>>
>>Unfortunately, we don't even have enough time to migrate sites to the
>>new servers, much less do a redesign of them all. This is a big
>>project, and we are already swamped with work. A lot of people are
>>dissatisfied with the layout of their current IMC site and want to
>>change that, we understand that. The good news is part of the
>>migration to a new code-base means your look-and-feel of your IMC site
>>will change to the default layout of the particular code-base that you
>>choose, all of these are incredible improvements over Active's default
>>design. In addition, Active was very difficult to customize, the newer
>>code-bases have the advantage that they are much simpler to make
>>design changes to them. So we ask that you hold off on any cosmetic
>>design changes until the site has been migrated.
>>
>>* DONATIONS NEEDED!
>>
>>The IMC-Tech working group needs your immediate donations in order to
>>purchase new servers and locate new hosting spaces by the 01 Dec 2003
>>deadline. Donations of hardware or hosting are also very welcome!
>>
>>We are asking anyone who can to make a donation of $5. With a positive
>>response from the large numbers of Indymedia contributors and
>>sympathizers, we hope to raise the funds necessary. If you have more
>>resources, we encourage you to donate whatever you can: $25, $50,
>>$100, $500.
>>
>>Please email imc-tech at lists.indymedia.org. Let people know that they
>>can donate via Paypal. Or if you know anyone who might have the
>>following to donate, please contact us:
>>
>>Server class hardware:
>>
>> * Pre-built rackmount or tower servers
>> * Server components for custom-built servers
>> * PC Weasel's (please email imc-tech at lists.indymedia.org
>> for info first)
>> * Additional hard drives
>> * Additional memory
>>
>>Server hosting:
>>
>> * Colocation or bandwidth
>>
>>
>>1.
>
> http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-sysadmin/2003-October/002450.html
>
>>2. http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Sysadmin/ServerCoordination
>>3. http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Devel/WebHome, also you can see
>>4. http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Devel/OpinonsExperiences.
>>_______________________________________________
>>Seattletech mailing list
>>Seattletech at lists.indymedia.org
>>http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/seattletech
>
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