Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 21:39:16 -0700
Reply-To: Jim Arnott <jrasite@EONI.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Jim Arnott <jrasite@EONI.COM>
Subject: Vanagon@ gerry vs. Vanagon@yahoo
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
Friends,
I'd like to clear up a bit of confusion that I'm seeing in some of our
members who haven't experienced a server move before..
Vanagon@ gerry vs. Vanagon@yahoo
Vanagon@lenti. The original Vanagon (and for that matter, all things
type2) list. Originally hosted on a University of Minnesota server and
admin'ed by Gerry Skrerbitz. Eventually we wore out our welcome there
and the listmembers came together to purchase a server. This server,
named gerry in honor of our founder, was moved (IIRC. Ancient history)
to a server room at the University of Calif at San Diego and admin'ed
by Chris Smith and Ron (Coyote) Lussier. Around this same time, the
air-cooled folks decided that they were tired of hearing about leaky
heads and bought their own server. Type2 and vintagebus moved to it.
Children of gerry. (Maybe it was after the next move...)
The next move occurred a year or so later when the list's box was moved
to San Francisco and Chris turned the admin chores over solely to
Coyote. I don't remember exactly where it lived in The City, but Ron
took care of everything, including grabbing the vanagon.com domain.
After a few years with Ron, it came time to move yet again.
This time gerry was being sent to David Marshall up in BC. With the
cross border potential for extended down-time I started up a list on
OneList to keep our listmembers appraised of the move's progress. This
list morphed from vanagon@onelist to, eventually, vanagon@yahoogroups
as companies were 'acquired.' This 'spare' list was conceived not as a
replacement but to serve the same purpose as the 'spare' tire on our
buses. To get us home.
Because the hardware was getting a bit long-in-the-tooth, we were
experiencing a fair number of outages. To keep everyone up to speed, I
kept the spare list alive as a means of communicating information about
gerry to those interested.
A few years passed, David's plate got full with Fast Forward and it was
time for another move. David sent gerry to live with Tom Carrington.
Once again, the spare list kept everyone in the loop.
Over the years that gerry has lived with Tom, it's gone through
significant upgrades. This has reduced the real "necessity" for the
spare list to almost nil. Uptime has been phenomenal in Tom's hands.
However... it was easier to leave the spare list there than to blow it
off. Turns out to have been a good choice. It's moving time again.
So... to sum up:
1.) gerry, the actual hardware and the software in it, belongs to the
members of the list. Your donations paid for it. You own it.
2.) The vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com list is NOT going to be moved
anywhere. The box may move, but the list will continue to be hosted on
gerry. It makes no sense to give up our autonomy. We own the hardware
and we own a mailing list package that is the envy of the other type2
lists.
3.) The vanagon@yahoogroups.com list is the "spare" list. Its primary
purpose is to communicate the status of gerry and to maintain list
continuity when gerry moves from one locale to another. It is used by
some as a 'vanagon mailing list' but that is not its real mission.
Any questions? Feel free to ask!
(Unca, did I get the history right? We really need to get it right, get
the dates and put it in the files on gerry. A ten year old mailing list
is quite an accomplishment. Most lists don't have "history.")
Jim Arnott
List Admin
SPARE Vanagon List
Leopards break into the temple and drink to the dregs what is in the
sacrificial pitchers; this is repeated over and over again; finally it
can be calculated in advance, and it becomes part of the ceremony.
-Kafka
