[Search-l] Any updates?

[Paul Vixie]

newsmarkie at googlemail.com ("Mark (Markie)") writes:

> ...
> 
> as for the fact that wikia is a for profit, i cant see, at this time it
> affecting us.  they have provided huge amounts of resources, including
> 1000 servers, at least 2 staff members working full time, lots more part
> time coding from the different departments, pr efforts, HUGE amounts of
> bandwidth etc etc.  also at this stage i cant see them just pulling the
> plug on it, but hey.....  i also think that at this point there isnt much
> point in setting up a diff org, but the way that search is done, if we or
> you want to do it, then every things free :-p
> 
> ...

i've been pushing jer and the others to move the servers out of swlabs.com
and into search.isc.org.  the servers were donated to isc, not wikia.  the
bandwidth they use is provided by isc.  wikia has donated a 15-ton air
conditioner, a smattering of network switches and front end servers, and a
heaping lot of jer's time and other wikia staff time.  wikia has agreed in
principal to underwrite the power costs of the isc physical plant used by
the crawlers and indexers.  but as for a "diff org" there already is one 
(see www.isc.org, ugly though it is) and i think it's odd that anybody is
still worried about that part.  ISC is a 501(c)(3) whose mission is public
benefit.  if anybody here thinks we're either incompetent or untrustworthy
with regard to owning and operating a search engine backend, i'd thank you
very much to call me on the phone and explain your concerns to me realtime.

> > ...
> >
> > So I think they will accept whatever the community accepts. I'm much
> > more concerned about Jeremie Miller accepting what other people come up
> > with, because he is the one most actively involved and also the person
> > (probably among others) who can commit the code and launch it in
> > production. And I think he is doing a great job at that, both with his
> > code and with giving some feedback to what is happening, but we still
> > need more communication with the delevopers. And I think he likes
> > coding more than he likes talking, otherwise I'd just "vote for him" to
> > be the boss... hehe
> >
> > ...

if wikia goes poof, or decides to exit the search business, then ISC will
find some other sponsor for this work, including paying jer and the others
if they want to keep working on this.  we're not rich, so there would be
some rocky times while we figured stuff out, but wikia's interests and
capabilities are of interest to this project only as long as wikia wants
them to be.  (note that wikia seems VERY interested in, and quite capable
of, continuing to sponsor this project.)

> > > ...
> > > 
> > > Wikia, and Wikia Search with it, is a corporate endeavor.  The
> > > authority people are there, but they currently choose not to act,
> > > apparently.  Wikia Search looks free, but isn't.  They can pull the
> > > plug at any time.  As long as this is so, I invest only a little time
> > > in it.  ...

that isn't so.  please feel free to invest as much time as you have into it.

> > > ... Some others see this the same way, at least it appears this way
> > > to me.  In the long run, we need an independent, not-for-profit
> > > search infrastructure, similar to Wikipedia.

you have that.  wikia foresaw a need for that in the earliest days, which is
how ISC got involved in the first place.  if you have concerns about ISC,
raise them here in public or on my phone or to my face, and i'll answer.
-- 
Paul Vixie