1.0 Major Contributers to the FAQ

I would like to thank the following people, whose efforts were particulary informative, helpful or encouraging:

Karl Denninger (Karl@MCS.COM) has been kind enough to share full information about his equipment configuration with the list, as well as contributing intriguing observations on the politics of the net. I can't afford to duplicate his equipment, {sob}, and I certainly don't know how to dig into the swamps of Internet politics like he does, but reading about both is both interesting and useful.

Draper Kauffman was kind enough to start an excellent discussion of the pitfalls and problems of operating a small IP provider. His discussion forms the core of my section on business problems, which I'm sure will be of great interest to many of you. Draper is the President of Illuminati Online, an Austin, TX provider.

Alicia Salomon was kind enough to contribute information on many different topics, including organizational and administrative issues I have yet to become familiar with. She also gave me considerable moral support and encouragement when this project was just a gleam in its creator's eye. Alicia is an independant consultant working on Internet-related issues. In concluding one of her notes, she reminds us, "Also, something really important I forgot was you should include a pointer to alt.caffine." Consider it done, Alicia. :-)

Bryant Durrell works as Postmaster for Netcom, and has generously offered to write the section on security for us. I particulary appreciate his input, considering the treatment I've given Netcom in various sections of this FAQ. Later in the document, I give him a manful apology.

My information on connecting to the Internet via leased lines came mainly through the i.net info files (ftp to ftp.i.net:/pub/internetworks. My thanks to Aaron Nabil of i.net for putting together the clearest explanation I've seen of what equipment and services are needed to start up a full Internet connection. Several books I've read have not been as clear as his simple description of the requirements, as shown in his info-prices file.

Most of the material in the BBS sections was kindly contributed by Mr Eric S. Raymond . Mr. Raymond is the programmer and designer of Chester County InterLink (CCIL), a free public access site in Chester County, Pennsylvania, USA. He is also the updater and maintainer of the legendary jargon file, now published as 'The New Hackers' Dictionary, Second Edition', a book I bought and read with considerable enthusiasm. (The book brings back all sorts of nostalgic memories of the good old days I spent hacking as a "Tourist" at MIT with the much-beloved and now lamented Incompatible Timesharing System (ITS).)

This FAQ is copyright (C) 1994/1995 by David H Dennis. Unlimited non- commercial redistribution is allowed so long as the text and copyright notice is retained in its entirety and not modified in any way. I will soon be splitting this document into multiple parts. You may distribute individual parts without distributing the whole, as long as the FTP site for the document is mentioned or some other way of getting the entire document is given. Commercial use is prohibited without written permission from the author.

Release History and Changes

First Release: Sunday 14 August 1994 13:20:26

FAQ written. Circa 527 lines.

Second release: Sunday, 21 August 1994 12:52:10

Added distilled wisdom on low-capital IP startups; Added appendix on use of BSDI Unix as a router; added statement on Net-99 courtesy of Karl Denninger. FAQ balloons to over 2,000 lines for the first time.

Third release: Minor changes, unrecorded by history

Fourth Release: 17 November 1994

Added contributions on BSDI Unix by Tony Sanders and other suggestions from him, particulary much information on how to use a BSDI system as a router, and other generalized BSDI hardware recommendations. Added information on credit card acceptance. Rewrote the entire CIX section in view of recent changes to its status. A little more on 'Guerilla Financing'. A section on competition from the government, cable TV and telephone companies was added. Many detail updates were also made that I don't remember. Alas. :-( FAQ hits 4,119 lines, 197,862 bytes.

Fifth Release: January 26, 1995

The hot new trend of marketing through the Internet, a new way to use your site to host stimulating and creative efforts, is now explored in a new section, thanks to the fine folks in the inet-marketing mailing list. Information about Sun and Sun clone hardware, including sidebars on the new Sun Netra server and an Internet "starter kit" is now included. Added contributions on Linux, security and system administration from Bryant Durrell , as well as an apology to Netcom lovers everywhere. Added the first version of my script to kill off runaway processes. Also added additional information for Macintosh and PC BBS lovers. An inspirational paen to our friends at Microsoft and Windows NT rounds up this month's exciting changes, and I chide people for trying to run Internet providers without learning Unix. FAQ once again jumps in size, this time to over 5,000 lines for the first time.

Sixth Release: February 11, 1995

This release marked a major reorganization of the information presented, and an effort was started to convert it to HTML without completely messing up the text version.

This FAQ was prepared using various computers and software, including a Tatung 85mhz SPARC 5 clone, a Sun 3/60, an IBM ThinkPad 750C, Sager and AST laptop computers and 486 DX2/66 computers running both Linux and OS/2. Both GNU Emacs (Unix) and Epsilon (OS2-DOS) text editors were used. The author most heartily endorses writing on the Sun/Sparc (when at home) and the ThinkPad (anywhere else); both are splendid machines for writing, perhaps the best available.

Note added 24 June 1995

Gee, I haven't updated this section in a while, have I? I've more or less continuously revised the FAQ since I put it on the Web, but most of the changes have been quick additions which don't lend themselves well to a summary of highlights.

Next section: Introduction