Re: [cobalt-users] Status of cobalt-users

["alan@" <alan@xxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Craig Bernstein"
Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2003 6:13 PM
Subject: [cobalt-users] Status of cobalt-users


> I want to take an opportunity to try to put an end to some rumors of
> mysterious origin that keep coming back to me via the list members.
>
> There are no plans to shut down the cobalt-users list.  There is no need
> to send me email every time the list goes down for a few hours asking me
> if it is gone forever.  I promise that if that was going to happen I
> would let you know as far in advance as possible.
>
> As most of you know, the cobalt-users list goes back in history almost
> as far as Cobalt itself.  In late 2000, Sun acquired Cobalt and there
> have been a lot of changes over the last couple of years.  There is no
> such organization as "Cobalt" at Sun anymore.  The engineers that
> designed the hardware are mostly in the Volume Systems Products group,
> and the people who provide technical support are in Enterprise Services.
>   The resources ES provides are listed at:
>
> https://osc-amer.sun.com/OSCSW/svcportal?pageName=CobaltHomePage
>
> These resources include web forums that are monitored by ES personnel as
> well as the knowledge base, documentation, software downloads, and the
> option to submit service requests on a pay per incident basis.
>
> I work with most of the Cobalt sofware people in the group now known as
> Linux Software Engineering.  Most of the Cobalt lab and Internet stuff
> including the mailing lists have wound up in my lap.  Despite the snide
> comments to the contrary, my group does care about the Cobalt user
> community.  I will continue to support the list on a best effort basis,
> but it will always take second place to my job supporting the engineers
> who are working on future Linux products from Sun.
>
> The reason the lists were down this weekend is that the power to our
> labs was shut down for an extended period due to the construction of a
> large data center in this building.  The outage far exceeded our UPS
> capacity (remember the list server is now hosted in a "lab," not a 24x7
> data center like the Sun Cobalt Discussion forums) so systems needed to
> be shut down.  In addition, the sendmail daemon on the list server has
> taken to randomly dying off lately, causing mail delivery to be delayed
> a few times over the last few months.  I will continue to try and chase
> down that problem and would ultimately like to move the whole list to
> another box, but see my above comments about engineering priorities...
>
> This list has always been a user community based resource.  If an
> individual or a group within that community is willing to provide a list
> elsewhere that the group agrees is more reliable or useful or whatever,
> I certainly won't be offended.  That is something you need to decide
> amongst yourselves.  Otherwise, please feel free to let me know if you
> have any problems with the list and I will do my best in the time that I
> have available to keep things running smoothly.
>
> In exchange, I ask only for your patience.  Oh, and I guess, while I'm
> on the subject, I ask that you try to demand some sanity from your mail
> administrators.  I'm increasingly getting useless bounce messages from
> list members' servers about "Dirty Words" and nonexistent "viruses" and
> "unauthorized" attachments.  Most of the time they don't state what the
> 'dirty' word is, or where the suspected virus was found.  That makes
> them nothing but a waste of my time and bandwidth.
>
> My current favorite is the one I get regularly from "Autoresponder
> <mailer-daemon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>" that tells me "Please note, this email
> address will no longer be operational after January 31st, 2003".  There
> is no one from "rmci.net" on the list and <postmaster@xxxxxxxx> does not
> respond to my inquiries for more information about what/who the heck
> they are talking about.  Grrr... if I get adequate information in these
> messages I will try and work with you.   Messages like these repeated
> "Dirty Words" notifications with no futher explanation will just result
> in your subscription being removed.
>
> Thank you for your continued support of Cobalt and Linux at Sun.  Please
> let me know if you have any questions or concerns...
>
> --
> ...Craig Bernstein
>

Thanks Craig,

I think the problem stems from the fact that there doesn't seem to be any
Company feedback since Bruce left.
If we had a bit more input from you or someone equally qualified to speak
about the cobalts from a Sun perspective then the grumbling might die down a
bit.

I agree about the mail admin problem BTW.

Regards

Alan Bruce