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[Arno Weber]

--- On Thu, 6/18/09, Grant Bowman <grantbow at gmail.com> wrote:


> 
> Are there any further thoughts on how to make this happen
> for Karmic?
 
I see a few options.  A myriad plethora of options, really.

Top of the list would of course have to be funding a network of server farms through grants, preferably of the research variety.  I have a number of ideas concerning this, which I am hesitant to push out for perusal blindly due to their in no small part proprietary nature.  Since this approach involves the cost being no object, it is of course my favorite.

There are some other funding options, the nature of which involve concerns similar to those above, but again have the advantage of requiring only insignificant financial outlay.

A third option would be to use donated servers.

A fourth would be to solicit donation or at least use of existing clusters.  In case you are wondering, I have several in mind, such as the 'stone soup supercomputer.'  Although I know I seem to remember reading somewhere that allegedly officially this cluster has been taken offline, I can't help but suspect someone may still be using it to generate interest in recreating it, as long as the servers are shaken up at someone else's house, or, preferably, as funded above, a warehouse.

Lastly, I can't help but think a consensual ghostnet of local swap files may work well as a server network until new machines and warehouse space is obtained.  Possibly some thing with a '.ubu' extension.  I intend to call mine 'sit.ubu'

Then we could use the cluster to generate income for conventions with segue scooters and at least one of those Indian / French vans that run on compressed air.  We could even pay canonical to paint Ubuntu on the side.

I have been assured there is not enough interest at this time to justify painting 'Karmic' on anything just yet.



Also the Alaska LoCo needs a new mentor.

Feel free to email me on this.

Also, I know some of you may be intimidated by the complicated and potentially dangerous and unpopular nature of grant writing.  Let me just say we have trained professionals who have already assembled the guides and sample proposals.  Only the names need to be changed.

Also some of you may remember an obscure little comic strip long ago entitled "Bloom County" by one "Berkely Breathed," if I recollect correctly, featuring a penguin (his name was Opus.)  He also did a drawing in high school of a astronaut with his head exploding, accomplished by blowing red paint through a straw.  I just want to say as an aside that that looked fantastic.  (Allegedly his art teacher said about this "that's awful.  You're going to be very rich."

I mention this because he did a piece about research grants, probably in the 1980's, a time when some of us may have been more naive.

I believe the quote was something along the lines of "research scientists need Porsches too."

I just want to caution everybody we are not all guaranteed Ferraris out of this.  A few hundred should be no problem.