You veterans can ignore this -- you know it already
I am a Naval Reservist who lives in San Diego. After 9/11, I was mobilized to active duty in Maryland, leaving
behind my home, wife, kids, and OpenACS (version 3.2.5) site, felixOrg.
I had developed the site as a learning tool, a repository for
photos, and a prototype for a system at work, and because I was
(and am) firmly convinced that a data-centric model, hardening only
one remotely-accessible system, is far more useful than a machine-
centric model for manipulating "personal date," i.e. schedules, phone
books, and the like. As it happened, I had to leave it all behind
with almost no notice when I left home, running unattended in my San
Diego home via cable modem.
What a wonderful tool it has been! The system had an uptime of over
100 days when I left in October, kept running without problems until
March when I did a kernel security patch, and continues without a
hiccup. I've been home three times since then with far better things
to do than system administration, and it just keeps chugging along
providing remote access to my data and services to my family,
friends, and other users. I continue to do the majority of
administration via the various web interfaces with occasional SSH
logins to touch the database, however those were "nice-to-have," not
required interventions.
I can't begin to say how this has eased my absence. How many
software systems can you name that would continue to operate
autonomously for a year? Of those, how many were not built to
mission-critical specifications at great expense? Not many.
I skim the digests and boards, and sometimes it seems that the end
user's voice doesn't appear very often here. To that end, I'd like
to thank all the people who have made OpenACS the stable, reliable,
useful set of tools is it. I'm looking forward to coming home one of
these days and exploring the 4.x series.
Oh, did I mention that I implemented a similar system used for
interdivisional coordination at a major defense contractor that has
also run unattended since I left?
Best regards to all.
