Lee, et al.

Steve Schwenk's comments about sum it up.  I created the Spare list (ONElist)
when Gerry moved from SDSCC to B.C.  I've been too lazy to make it go away and
it's been nice to have a forum for all the "Is the list down?" messages.

Gerry seems to be acquiring the dreaded VW syndrome.  Runs when it wants to.
I suspect that we will have to live with it until the list ponys up the funds
to replace the hardware or chooses some other alternative.  After all, it's
OUR list.  Server and all.  David's employer graciously provides the
connection and the electricity to run the server.  (THANKS DAVID'S
EMPLOYER!!!)  When we lost Gerry Skerbitz and access to lenti, the listmembers
contributed to purchase the server and the software.  That was, what, three
years ago?  The hardware and O/S are rapidly becoming obsolete and seem to no
longer be up to the task.

(soapbox mode on)
One of the problems in our "democratic" list environment is that everyone has
an opinion on what hardware/software to purchase to replace the current HP/NT
with.  Unless we can come to some agreement (compromise!), five years from now
we'll still be experiencing random outages. (Remember Ron's trip to Burning
Man last year?)  I have NO opinion about platform choice and configuration
other than this...  David's employer has been providing us with a free
service.  David has been providing us with a free service.  He's the guy that
has to go  in to work on Sunday morning to re-boot the bloody thing.  He's the
guy that has to deal with all of us.  IMHO, his opinion carries a bit more
weight than any one of ours.  And we do all owe him our support.  If he can
buy adequate hardware through his employer, then that what we should do.  If
he has O/S preferences, then let him get what he's comfortable with.  He's
gotta live with it. And lastly, I believe that we may be stuck with the NT O/S
as that's what our listserv software runs under.  That was the high dollar
item!
(soapbox mode off)

If the listmembers decide that gerry isn't worth the hassle, they are free to
post to the Spare list and have it become the main list if they choose.  It
costs us nothing and the administration of it hasn't cost me more than about
an hour of my time since December '98.

Jim Arnott
List Admin
Spare Vanagon