[255] in magellan
Linux Discovery Team Minutes for 4 August 1999
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)
Mon Aug 9 17:16:07 1999
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 17:16:02 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <199908092116.RAA12538@x15-cruise-basselope.mit.edu>
From: tb@MIT.EDU (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)
To: linux-disc@MIT.EDU
Cc: vkumar@MIT.EDU, magellan@MIT.EDU
The following was inadventently missing from the minutes for the July
28th meeting:
In discussing the Athena support fees mechanism, we noted the
following:
Traditionally Athena Fees were sold to customers as the way to
get support.
Actually the support component may not be the biggest pie slice of what
the fees pay for. Some things that the fees cover:
License fees for third party software.
Ongoing maintenance fees for third party software.
Infrastructure including:
Athena development, licensing and maintenance.
AFS
Other aspects of infrastructure you get with Athena.
*****
Linux/Athena Discovery Team
4 August 1999
Present: Oliver Thomas, Abby Fox, Bill Cattey, Heather Harrison,
Thomas Bushnell, Karl Ramm, Greg Hudson.
We discussed business motivations and project timing.
*****
We outlined the following business motivations:
Higher importance
-----------------
* Make a prudent investment to be a part of the emerging Linux-based
trend in computing. This will make it possible to take advantage of
many new innovations. Linux is the most dynamic OS/platform and is
rapidly gaining market importance.
* Recognize and support well the existing Linux-using customer base
at MIT.
* Linux PC's are commodity hardware in a very competitive hardware
market; accordingly they are cheaper both in terms of initial
purchase and replacement parts.
* Diversify the supported Athena platforms, lessening dependence on
just one or two vendorns and fostering competition in the
marketplace.
* Leverage the Open Source model of Linux development
- easier to change and extend to meet customer needs
- more rapid customer response
- our changes much more likely to be adopted by developers
- bugfixes not dependent on the vendor's release methodology
Lower importance
----------------
* Become a part of the large Linux developer community, which among
other things provides an outlet for MIT-developed software that we
would like others to use.
* Advance Linux's stature in the marketplace; help to lessen
dependence on Microsoft.
* Advance the Linux state of the art.
*****
We created the following timeline for events to happen within the
specified months:
August:
Software in crash-and-burn release state.
Order 13 [or 23] machines.
September:
Software in alpha release state.
Have 13 testing and support machines in hand.
[ Have 10 cluster machines in hand. ]
Start release notes.
Notify hotline of hardware installation requirements.
October:
Software in beta release state.
Start writing and expanding documentation.
Begin third party software testing.
Begin OLC training.
November:
Software in early release state.
Notify Athena minicourse people of new hardware.
[ Order 10 cluster machines. ]
December:
Software in release.
[ Have 10 cluster machines in hand. ]
Notify hotline of presence of machines for W-20 cluster.
January:
Deploy cluster machines.
The brackets indicate uncertainty about whether the cluster machines
should be bought just before installation is planned, or at the same
time as the development/testing machines.
