Talking about the BSD family of free operating systems.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
bsdtalk021 - Interview with Stephen Jones of SDF
Interview with Stephen Jones of SDF. Super Dimension Fortress provides free shell accounts at http://www.freeshell.org
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43 comments:
Hey,
Are you a student or professor at UMA? I belong to SDF and when I downloaded the interview I noticed that it was downloading faster than anything I have ever downloaded on campus here at UMF! Nice stuff man! Ill be sure to listen to it often!
Kered557
kered557@sdf.lonestar.org
This was a great interview on the history and status of SDF. I joined last summer. It's been a wonderful educational experience and lots of fun.
Makes me want to get the BBS Documentary at:
http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/order/
The history of this type of networking: bbs's, gopher, shell access is fascinating.
Cowl
cowl@sdf.lonestar.org
This was a great interview on the history and status of SDF. I joined last summer. It's been a wonderful educational experience and lots of fun.
Makes me want to get the BBS Documentary at:
http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/order/
The history of this type of networking: bbs's, gopher, shell access is fascinating.
Cowl
cowl@sdf.lonestar.org
Some SDF statistics not mentioned in the interview:
* 208 VHOSTed domains
* 6029 member hosted domains
(51 'vanity' domains to choose from)
* 27065 active members
* usually ~400 concurrent users at anytime
* 10 production machines (NetBSD alpha 2.1/2.0.2)
* 21 * 36.4GB drives / 10-30GB 'local' per host
* 6172 dialup numbers in the US/Canada
* over 1 million accounts created since 1987
Anyone know any others?
Nice interview! Actually learned some new things about SDF (been a member since June 2001). It's amazing Stephen has kept SDF going so long - and he sounds so young! ;)
I have been a member of SDF since early 2003. At a time when everything was going to web based mail SDF provided me with the shell account I was looking for and has provided me with great and extremely cheap service ever since.
Thanks Stephen!
-Rich Bryant
Been with SDF for a long time now and it's great to hear the story and history behind SDF. Hell I didn't even know what the SDF stood for. Great to hear Stephens words though always had great admiration for him and his love of UNIX and Severed Heads.
NsOmNiAc
Stephen forgot to mention the 'netris' tourneys!
I enjoyed this very much. Thanks.
Hi Stephen
Thanks for the great interview! And I don't think you are a boring storyteller (as you mentioned in your email). Nice to hear about the history of SDF and how you took on the challenges. Keep it up!
--Stefan (happy SDF-EU user since 2004)
So great to hear the history behind this amazing service! I actually just signed up last week due to my nostalgia for the gopher system; I'm very much still in the process of "learning the ropes" as it were. I especially appreciate Stephen's anti-establishment, anti-corporate idealism; it is that sort of attitude which I personally feel helps to fuel the "true spirit" of the Internet. Wonderful interview, and I'm so happy to be a part of this!
Devon
dkoren@sdf.lonestar.org
I've been a member since 22oct2001 and can't begin to list the many things I've gotten out of my membership. I learned a whole lot about a wide array of things; had a bunch of interesting conversations; good things to do to kill time; met nice people (even in `real life'); etc., etc. Thanks for the interview.
I think ignoring the following question was a great omission:
Is it not honourable to mutt suck dinner duck?
There's also a great writeup on SDF on the Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Super_Dimension_Fortress
Unfortunately, it does not cast Stephen's management of the system in a very good light.
SDF is what Internetworking used to be before the shameless and wanton over commercialization of the Internet.
Cool to learn about all the backstory of how things happened in the early days. Great job Stephen.
artagel at sdf
Great interview! I've been a member for 2 years. I will never leave. Until, of course, smj pulls the plug. :)
Get your free UNIX shell account at sdf.lonestar.org
-cor-
Why not just install Linux or NetBSD on your own computer?
What would I get out of joining this system? Wouldn't I learn more by "rolling my own" shell account at home?
I'm sure Stephen is a nice guy, but why would I want to trust him (or anyone there) to keep my files safe?
It might be a good way for newbies to get their feet wet before they graduate to setting up their own home system. But, isn't that what Knoppix is for?
Nice interview. I was excited to learn more about SDF. I've been a member for a few years now and it's been great. Thanx for keeping it running!
Great interview, SMJ. Every single time I use SDF I feel grateful that the real Internet isn't quite dead yet. Thanks for keeping it alive.
-Kara
(SDF user since 2003)
I like SDF because it's Lisp-friendly. They have a ready to use ISLISP (OpenLisp) and they also run some stuff on Symbolics Genera (although I have no idea as to what).
Stephen Jones is a true hacker, a true system administrator!
Oh, by the way. SDF gives access to a DEC Alpha (that's 64 bits).
Pretty nice.
SDF is an invaluable resource for those interested in learning and take pleasure out of discovery. Its true accomplishment is the many smart, friendly, and interesting people it has made into loyal users: a testament to its excellence.
An exciting bit of SDF history. I've been an sdf member since early 2001. Why couldn't I have joined up earlier? When will the "More from Stephen Jones" interview be out?
kthorn
Nice interview. I had no idea quite how much work went into SDF. It was interesting to hear the history of SDF. Very good job.
Erikstotle
estotle@sdf.lonestar.org
Thanks for the history lesson. Now I know why linux got dumped.
SDF Public Access Unix System .. est. 1987
sdf.lonestar.org
No Pop-up or Banner Ads
No SPAM
No Nonsense
Great interview. My years on sdf have been useful and informative. Here's to another 20 years.
smj i love you....
your anonymous admirer
Jesus smj can talk. I hope it was the edit but the first reply went on for about 10 minutes. Also I imagined when smj spoke it would be like a voice from Olympus, instead he sounds like some UNIX sys-admin.
Still a great interview, at least for SDF users. I listened at a friends house when he had gone out, when most normal people would be looking at porn.
No mention of the international facets of SDF though.
brendan@droog
Cool interview, and for auditive people like me, nice to have a voice now in the head when reading stuff from smj! (Even if English is not my native language.)
It's interesting to hear about the history - the only thing I'm regretting is that I haven't come to SDF earlier than 2004.
Definitely a cool place for trying things out, for getting into touch with a lot of interesting people (not to mention the knowledge and idea base), and to have a "base in cyberspace" where one feels at home. I'll continue to do advertisement for it, hoping that SDF will continue!
-yargo@sverige
At 8:52 AM, \ On The Streets of Philadelphia \ said...
Stephen:
'Devon' said it for me: "I especially appreciate Stephen's anti-establishment, anti-corporate idealism; [...] attitude which I personally feel helps to fuel the "true spirit" of the Internet. Wonderful interview, and I'm so happy to be a part of this!
I'm also very pleased [more at: relieved] to note somebody else is a fan of "THX-1138"; when I've tried describing its seminal influence and the filmmaking/literary excellence [also clearly anti-estab, anti-corp] I seem always to engender The 1000 Millimeter Stare.
N.B.: Not to evaluate anyone at your level of expertise, but [re. your almost palpable focus, thought organization, etc.] I notice you low-ball your [public] speaking skill set (in the email announcement)! This is one absorbing interview from where I sit [now higher-up, straighter and taller-in-saddle after exp. to this information]. Thank you! --Wordy Wally --- 'lunarvol' admin@gobi-igloo.com
Hi! I'm hearing-impaired (deaf) so unfortunately I couldn't listen to the interview. However, I am a member of SDF for the past few years. One of the commentors wanted to know why they should trust Stephen/SDF. Well, I felt very wary the first time I joined, but as time went by, SDF has gained my trust. Never had a single problem or felt suspicious. Free shell account and a lot of goodies, to boot - what more could you ask for! ;-)
Give SDF a try! If you don't like it for whatever reason, you could always leave. You've got not much to lose.
Great job, Stephen/SMJ and SDF! Keep it up. You've got a lot of loyal and satisfied SDF users backing you up.
--A Happy SDF User
Interesting interview. And thanks smj for keeping gopher alive!
Thank you very much again!
Looking forward to the next edition of BSDTalk! :)
way to go smj. SDF is great. takes me back to the good old days.
transcribed this interview? lol.
Almost the whole interview is so boring.
What a self-centered man!
Lets see, the interview was about him and SDF. What else was he supposed to talk about? You? What a self centered man!
SMJ does a great job at SDF.
For those who've asked .. SDF is more then a shell account, it's a community of people who communicate with one another via the various methods that SDF provides (BBS, WEB, Email, IRC, to name a few). What makes SDF special is that it is run like a computing environment in the early days of the Internet.
Its not corporate at all. Its simply a place for people who like computing.
biff@sdf.lonestar.org
An interview that was very pleasant to listen to. I had the impression that you ended it too quickly. You don't have any time limits, so you shouldn't end your interviews when the other guy still has something to say.
Anyway, thanks for you work!
@Anonymous I have installed free and paid operating systems on more computers and devices than I can remember. Yes, "rolling your own" is a satisfying learning opportunity if you have the skills, patience, money, space (resources) to make that happen. I would guess, however, that the community they have isn't a part of your I-am-an-island approach. I should know--I rarely interact with people as much as I do with a terminal session on any given day. Sounds like they are almost the social equivalent of a secular church, if you will.
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