[Simplygnustep-discuss] Re: [Simplygnustep-announce] SGStep.com/org/net mail server is available

[Chad H. <ceh...@ma...>]

I'd like to explain exactly what I'm doing here:

First of all, I have realized I don't really have the time to work on 
SimplyGNUstep at the speed which I would like.  I think you all would 
agree that progress has been slow.

the reason is that I'm a very busy person!  I'm currently in Army, 
working more than full-time and going to college full time as well.  My 
wife also works and goes to school full time.  To add to that, we have 
two small children ( a boy and a girl) :-).  you can imagine....

HOWEVER, I will be graduating in about 1 yr.  In addition, I will be 
leaving the Army in about 15 months.  So there is a really big 
opportunity for all this to change for the better.

What I would like is to be able to work on SimplyGNUstep FULL time at 
that point in time  This includes improving GNUstep itself by writing 
new applications and frameworks.

However, there is no way I will be able to do this and support my 
family without some type of revenue to pay the rent, eat food, all that 
nice stuff.

So I have come up with a plan to (hopefully) allow me to do this.  What 
is that plan?  To provide online services similar to Apple's .Mac, but 
for a much lower price (about $25 a year).  The goal is to not only 
provide the raw internet services but to make it in such a way so that 
it totally complements and integrates with SimplyGNUstep.  I think such 
a service is a pretty good deal at $25 a year, maybe I'm wrong....

Now, if I can maintain about 2000 paying users at one time that would 
equate to about $4000 in revenue a month.  More than enough to be able 
to work on simplyGNUstep full tie and produce something really cool for 
everyone to enjoy.  Note that I currently make quite a bit more than 
$4000 a month right now, so I'm not doing this for the money.  If all I 
cared about was the money then I would stay in my nice, cushy, well 
paying army job.

But before this can happen I need to get the server running with users 
so I can configure it and see how well it handles loads.  I need to see 
if my inet service is up to the challenge too  (I have business class 
broadband going in my house).  As of right now the mail server seems to 
working (SMTP, POP, IMAP, with optional SSL), I got DNS working too.  
Right now I'm boning down on PHP and MySQL, which is a vital part of 
all this.

Ok, So I'm asking for as many people as possible to start using the 
server.  I'm not asking for any money or anything, just users.  So it 
would be awesome if you would ask for an account.  tell you friends, 
mom, brothers, sisters etc about it too.  The more the merrier. :-).  
I'm also not going to be charging for SimplyGNUstep, it will always be 
a free system, so this service will support its development.  I may, in 
some point in the future, sell nice, pretty, packaged SimplyGNUstep 
boxes, but that will be optional.  The same CD will be available for 
download, unlike most of the other linux distro's out there.


Thanks!

Chad


P.S.  Note that the server is not just some cheap PC.  For example, it 
has a 3ware 4 port RAID card, the *real* stuff, don't want to lose 
people's data!  :-)




On Dec 19, 2003, at 9:23 PM, Chad Hardin wrote:

> I put out a few days back that anyone who asks can get themselves an 
> email account on my new server www.sgstep.com/org/net
>
> I was surprised that only one person responded, nobody else is 
> interested?
>
> You will also get 100MB of online storage using ftp.
>
> In the works are:
>
> personal webpages at yourname.sgstep.com
>
> online web mail
>
> online managemnt of passwords, etc.
>
> plus more stuff....
>
> Yes, this is kinda like a simple .Mac service
>
>
> I would like to have as many people using the server as possible so I 
> can get lot's of experience setting in up.
>
>
> Is there any more among you who would like to try it out?
>
> (sniff)
>
> Chad