Comment IBM System/360 Model 50. Or... (Score 1) 523
So many possible answers.
So many possible answers.
Link us to the wiki that has the current documentation instead of advertising the book.
Where is this wiki you are talking about? The only "current documentation" is in the Git repository in the form of source code.
But you make an interesting suggestion: provide links to the current documentation about the protocols. That would be the RFCs that the IETF have released. That's the original source material. All I do in the gray matter sections is combine the information from some number of RFCs into a single whole.
Reference links for each section. That's the ticket.
Answer: I host it on my own Web server, not a Web host. (That could change sometime, but not soon.) The server sits on a 100/20 AT&T fiber link. If traffic increases to fill that 20 megabits, then I'll upgrade to a 100/100 circuit. If the book ever gets that popular. Judging from the royalty reports on the first edition, I don't expect this to be a problem. But I do Have A Plan(tm) if it does.
Which reminds me, I need to install MRTG somewhere sometime to monitor the traffic. Be a good little sysadmin.
If you give it away, they treat it like trash; if you make them suffer, even a little bit, for it, then they start defending it because their self-esteem rests on that sunk cost being a good decision and not a bad one. How does he get paid for this book? Advertising? Google seems to pay exactly $0.01618 per view, so until you get into the millions you are still living on California welfare wages.
No, I'm living off of freelance writing, Social Security (at least, I will be in six months), the severance from my last job, and money I have in the bank. Right now, writing the Second Edition is more of a hobby than a money-making enterprise, to help me keep sharp and busy between writing assignments. Or alternating with writing assignments, as if/when the market bulds up for me.
There is another aspect. Back when I talked about this in 2000, there were a number of comments that I should "publish" as an open-source project. To me, that means "free for everyone." I don't have a problem with that. "Open source" means I can update whenever I want without having to schedule a press run. Moreover, I may be able to accept section (chapter) contributions wholesale, as well as critiques and errata notices retail. In short, I want to fulfill the promise in the original edition of "continuous update."
As for publishing in paper, the design of the Web book is such that transferring the content to the printed page should be pretty simple, if tedious. The sections in both the articles and commentary correspond to chapters in a book. The downside is that publishing on paper means the content is frozen in time. If you look at Linus' Git repository for the kernel, it's by no means frozen. Indeed, the velocity of releases is increasing, particularly as the IETF RFC document numbers are about to break into five digits.
The audience for my book is very much into mobile devices: phones, tablets, and other neat gadgets with small screens. Also, we may see something like Google Glass make an appearance. (Wonder how my book would render in eye-phones?) A very small number may elect to kill trees retail, so why should I kill trees wholesale? (No, I'm not a tree-hugger: saving paper is not in my list of goals for the second edition.)
Repeat: this is not a money-making project for me. I want to give back to the community that has supported me so well over the decades.
And that's the tooth. (<Bronx cheer>)
History: 20 years ago, Heather BJ Clifford and I wrote a book, Linux IP Stacks Commentary, which walked through the Linux TCP/IP stack code and commented it in detail. (Old-timers will remember the Lion's Unix Commentary, the book published by University xerographic copies on the sly. Same sort of thing.) CoriolisOpen published it. And a bit later sank into the west. Nothing has been done since, at least not by us.
Now: when I was released from my last job, I tried retirement. Wasn't for me. I started going crazy with nothing significant to do. So, going through old hard drives (that's another story), I found the original manuscript files, plus the page proof files, for that two-decade-old book. Aha! Maybe it's time for an update. But how to keep it fresh, as Torvalds continues to release new updates of the Linux kernel? Publish it on the Web. Carefully.
After four months (and three job interviews) I have the beginnings of the second edition up and available for reading. At the moment it's an updated, corrected, and expanded version of the "gray matter", the exposition portions of the first edition. In addition, I have put forth ideas for making the commentary portions easier to keep up to date, after they are initially written.
The URL for the alpha-beta version of this Web book is https://www.satchell.net/ipsta... for your reading pleasure. The companion e-mail address is up and running for you to provide feedback. There is no paywall.
Thanks to the work of Professor Donald Knuth (thank you!) on his WEB and CWEB programming languages, I have made modifications, to devise a method for integrating code from the GIT repository of the Linux kernel without making any modifications (let alone submissions) to said kernel code. The proposed method is described in the About section of the Web book. I have scaffolded the process and it works. But that's not the hard part.
The hard part is to write the commentary itself, and crib some kind of Markup language to make the commentary publishing quality. The programs I write will integrate the kernel code with the commentary verbiage into a set of Web pages. Or two slightly different sets of web pages, if I want to support a mobile-friendly version of the commentary.
Another reason for making it a web book is that I can write it and publish it as it comes out of my virtual typewriter. No hard deadlines. No waiting for the printers. And while this can save trees, that's not my intent.
The back-of-the-napkin schedule calls for me to to finish the expository text in September, start the Python coding for generating commentary pages at the same time, and start the writing the commentary on ICMP in October. By then, Linus should have version 6.0.0 of the Linux kernel released.
I really, really, really don't want to charge readers to view the web book. Especially as it's still in the virtual typewriter. There isn't any commentary (yet). One thing I have done is to make it as mobile-friendly as I can, because I suspect the target audience will want to read this on a smartphone or tablet, and not be forced to resort to a large-screen laptop or desktop. Also, the graphics are lightweight to minimize the cost for people who pay by the kilopacket. (Does anywhere in the world still do this? Inquiring minds want to know.)
I host this web site on a Protectli appliance in my apartment, so I don't have that continuing expense. The power draw is around 20 watts. My network connection is AT&T fiber — and if it becomes popular I can always upgrade the upstream speed.
The thing is, the cat needs his kibble. I still want to know if there is a source of funding available.
Also, is it worthwhile to make the pages available in a zip file? Then a reader could download a snapshot of the book, and read it off-line.
So my answer, if Dropbox remains adamant, is to go to the used computer store, pick up the cheapest Windows box that will accept a 2-TB drive, and let Dropbox run on THAT. Share the Dropbox folder. On the Linux systems, you use Samba client, or mount using the cifs filesystem type.
I'm the only person using Linux desktop in $DAYJOB, so I'm the only one facing the November 7 deadline. What about away from my LAN? I would just VPN into my firewall and access the share that way.
The difference between involvement and commitment is like ham and eggs. The chicken is involved; the pig is committed.
I have a Lenovo laptop with Windows 7 Professional on it. Sometime in the last nine months, Windows has forgotten how to talk with much of the hardware in the laptop. This includes the finger reader and all networking devices. I called both Microsoft and Lenovo, and both refused to help.
So I never see the nags!
The hardware works fine, as proven by the copy of Fedora 20 I have running on the thing -- when I need to network, I just boot into Linux and have at it. RJ-45 port. Wifi. All happy. (I haven't tried installing the finger reading software yet, because I don't have much use for it.
When I need to copy software across, USB sticks and Blu-Ray drive work just swell. That's how I keep the DVD/BR reader up to date on the laptop that runs in the Windows side.
So, no problem. That doesn't help the folks in hospitals or out in the field...
I've been worrying about the ability for wireless routers to withstand any significant attack, particularly given the reponsiveness of the manufacturers of the things (like, none at all) to exploits. So I made a decision to put my wireless router behind a firewall that keeps bad people in the cloud from playing.
Yes, the firewall would cost money ($70 for the computer, $0 for the firewall software -- I'm using CentOS and IPTABLES) and it's another box, but that box protects my inside network, so that I abide by the rule "Never expose Microsoft gear to the bare Internet." As a bonus, I run the router in bridge mode, so that my firewall gets to answer DHCP requests instead of the router. Makes packages like Dropbox work properly even for wireless devices.
I use LANsync quite a bit, because the repository at work has some DVD ISO images, and an update or addition causes quite a bit of network traffic without LANsync. With LANsync, the traffic is between my fileserver and the wireless device, and the uplink carries only the administrative traffic.
What I'm looking for is a wireless card I can put into a CentOS 7 box, so that I don't have to have the lashup I have now. It also means my resulting wireless router/server would be considerably more future-proof than my no-longer-supported Cisco branded router is. (Rebanded Linksys, I think.)
It is very easy to whip up a systemd script to manage the software no matter what quirks the software has about running as a daemon.
I've been looking for a concise, complete HOWTO on how to take an existing daemon program running in the old init-script environment and make minimal changes to have it run in the systemd environment. Can you point me to a URL?
This is the greatest thing to happen to the libre firmware movement.
Mr. Cerf and Mr. Taht have used the VW issue in their response to the FCC in ET Docket No. 15-170, the wireless-router lockdown issue. From the contribution: "Requiring all manufacturers of Wi-Fi devices to make their source code publicly available and regularly maintained, levels the playing field as no one can behave badly. The recent Volkswagen scandal with uninspected computer code that cheated emissions testing demonstrates that this is a real concern."
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success. -- Christopher Lascl