Mail for December 19, 2001

From: Jim Winstead
Subject: mail/news gateway
http://trainedmonkey.com/

I help administer the mailing lists for php.net, but am also very fond of newsgroup interfaces for mailing lists, so i put together a news server, written in perl, that interfaces directly with the ezmlm mailing list software that php.net uses. the news spool is the standard ezmlm archive format, and posting to the newsgroup simply forwards the message to the mailing list software. they perl guys noticed what i did, and started using it, too. we've both come up with simple web interfaces on top of the nntp server. (and we both have plans to do more with this. the current ones are basically proofs of concept.)

the nntp server software: http://trainedmonkey.com/colobus/ the php.net lists web interface: http://news.php.net/ the perl.org lists web interface: http://nntp.perl.org/group/

in addition, i've come up with a simple spam-protection scheme for the php mailing lists. when non-subscribed people post, it bounces a message to them that they have to reply to in order to confirm they're a real person. a twist on the usual bounce-to-a-moderator system because i simply don't have the patience for that (as the one who would be that moderator :).

your essay is excellent, by the way.

jim

From: Scott Gilbert
Subject: LDAP - I'm king of the world!

Okay hey you mentioned LDAP, thats my thing. With all the "War on ___" dogma these days, its as its always been to me, a war on microsoft. You have talked about passport and hailstorm and their implications. I agree. The big battle of this decade will be over access, authentication, and authorization. In a completely networked world where all information is digital, who you are in that world becomes key. No Larry SORRY, putting people in Oracle databases is way too cumbersome. No Bill SORRY, Passport is second hand software that is not secure and doesnt scale. Dont you see, its directories not databases! Directories will be where peoples identities and authorizations will live. Directories containing millions and millions of entries. And who has the most kick ass directory... Netscape (Netscape>iPlanet>Sun). Gee all of a sudden the browser war seems insignificant when you consider the future and going to the airport, swipe something, bam check the directory, doctor visit, swipe it, bam check the directory, login to your banks website, bam check the directory, to see who you are and what you can do. Yes the battle is on and me and all the other directory developers have to keep going to thwart shit like passport. Sun has to fight! Mozilla has to fight! We have to form a coalition, oops when I start sounding like Bush its a sign I need sleep :) Actually its simple, enabling software to authenticate against an ldap directory brings great benefits, and fucks microsoft too.

Some info I put together on ldap and directories http://directoryproject.isc.ucsb.edu

This site is old crap but the picture is funny http://scottgilbert.isc.ucsb.edu

Got LDAP?

From: Dries Buytaert
Subject: e-mail to web interface
http://www.drop.org/

To comment on your most recent essay ... Take a look at one of my blog entries at drop.org: http://www.drop.org/node.php?id=692. It describes what I'm currently working on. The net result is a collaborative weblog, Drupal, with moderation in style of kuro5hin.org where people can "subscribe" to the stories (called "nodes" in Drupal because they are a lot more generic). When you subscribe to a story, each comment /attached/ to a story is e-mailed to you, and you can also reply using e-mail (and your reply will show up on the website). In essence, we'll end up creating a lot of mini-mailing lists (that will typically die after a few days.

The implementation is more or less finished so I expect this to go life real soon now - I'm testing it on my local setup as we speak. If you want I notify you when this goes life - or you could periodically check my blog at drop.org.

Kind regards,

Dries Buytaert

From: Leigh Dodds
Subject: Enjoyed your community essay
http://weblogs.userland.com/eclectic

Hi Cam,

I thoroughly enjoyed your essay on communities, and wanted to share an idea I'd had in the past (can't remember whether I've posted about it before). It's relevant to your comments on how google, etc might expand their bag of tricks.

The idea came from two areas:

- Online chat is an old technology, but I've seen that some companies offer this as a means to talk to their customer services, help desk, etc.

- Sites that report on the top ranking searches in various search engines, e.g. Google's Zeitgeist: http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html

It started me wondering whether the two could be combined. If at any one time a number of people are using the same search engine to search for the same (or related) information. Then wouldn't it be neat if those users could communicate with each other?

This could be in a number of forms, e.g. simple chat, sharing the task of sifting out good links.

As well as providing a means for people to collaborate to find information, it also has the potential to bring people with similar interests together.

From: Steve Greenberg
Subject: LDAP and logins at Netscape

Hi Cam. Long time reader, first time caller.

I used to work at Netscape.

Another cool use of LDAP was that the browser could store all of its preferences on the server, so you could go to any desk and get your own, preferred environment. Nobody but us and a few big companies ever really used it that way, though. Kind of a shame because it was really nice.

Centralized access control was a big deal to large companies, and we sold boatloads of the stuff for a while there. Friends who are still with iPlanet tell me that it's still their biggest seller.

I used to be in Professional Services and my job was to roll it out. When I'd show them how you could completely set up a user on one screen (email, access control, the works), and turn him off with one click, their heads would explode. They loved it.

From: Glen Campbell
Subject: Random thoughts on your "community management" essay
http://www.siteframe.org

I liked your essay on community management, though you have to admit that it's somewhat superficial (which is actually what I needed). I've been constructing some content-management software; I sort of backed into it because I was totally unaware that there were packaged solutions for this.

It all started with a mailing list for users of Contax G-series cameras. When the original list failed, I set up a substitute. Then, we had the idea of building a website where we could show our pictures and store articles on photography. So I started http://www.contaxg.com. After a while, I got tired of posting everyone's image (it was all done manually), so I wrote some very simple software in PHP to automate the process so that users could do it themselves. One feature of the software was that people could comment on pictures, and the comments would be sent via email to the mailing list. It was this back-and-forth iteration between the list and the website that really helped grow the group.

A year or so later, I rewrote the software, separating content from presentation, and the result is the Siteframe package (http://www.siteframe.org). It's now being used on a couple of dozen sites, and I'm looking to release it more generally. The important thing, again, is that members of a community need to be able to participate: it doesn't work if someone else decides what gets published. Our Contax G group now numbers over 1,000, with about 5-10 new members every day. It's very much a self- regulating community. If someone causes problems, someone else on the list will gently correct them, and we've never had any real severe problems.

Anyway, thanks again for the essay; I regularly read your site and appreciate your links and insight.

Glen Campbell