Subject: Parsons is dying
From: Eric W. Sink (eric@abisource.com)
Date: Mon Jan 07 2002 - 08:50:47 CST
Greetings Abi developers!
I thought it would be appropriate for me to give everyone
a heads-up on the condition of parsons, the machine on which
many AbiWord-related resources are hosted here at SourceGear.
The machine seems to be dying. More specifically, the machine
is regularly exhibiting hardware problems which we have not
had time to diagnose. Sometimes it looks like the SCSI card
is flaky. Sometimes it looks like the disks are going bad.
Sometimes it works just fine, for a few weeks anyway.
I'll confess that I'm not enthused about the prospect of
replacing that machine. When parsons is behaving itself,
the resource drain of playing ISP for AbiWord is below
my radar. It's obviously not strategic for us, as we are
completely out of the open source arena now. But it usually
doesn't consume enough resources for me to worry about it.
AbiWord blips onto my radar when the machine requires attention
from someone here. Even then, I usually just proceed and
overlook it.
Now we face the possibility that parsons needs real attention
and new hardware. At this point, I have to seriously ask
if there are other alternatives. SourceGear is not as
financially healthy as it once was. We're losing money,
and we've had the painful experience of some staff
reductions. We're not going to be a candidate for "fc.com"
anytime soon, but the reality is that I must evaluate expenses
differently when we're in the red than I do when the company
is operating profitably.
So I am still a fan of the AbiWord project, but my radar
threshold is moving lower. I need to be asking myself
if it is appropriate for SourceGear to continue to provide
ISP services to this project.
Does anyone know where AbiWord's network resources might
find a new home? The bandwidth usage is not too bad, as
the actual downloads are hosted elsewhere. We run parsons
on our T-1 line, co-existing with the rest of SourceGear's
operations. I do intend to retain ownership of the domain
names, but I am willing to point them wherever the project
leaders want them pointed.
I hope that no one sees this as a threat of any kind. I love
AbiWord, and I want to be as supportive of its success as I
can responsibly be. When push comes to shove, I certainly have
no intention of letting parsons go permanently dark or anything
like that. I just want to let you all know of the possible
problems here, and ask if any others are able to take SourceGear's
place as the AbiWord ISP.
-- Eric W. Sink eric@sourcegear.com http://www.ericsink.com/
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