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SIPB Project List
Before reading this project list, check out an updated project list
available here.
This list is intended to be a resource for
members and prospectives who are looking for things to do. Send
additions, correction, requests for more information about any
projects, etc., to yandros@mit.edu.
There is a discuss meeting
called sipb-todo which can be found at
CHARON.MIT.EDU:/usr/spool/discuss/sipb-todo or WWW interface.
- Install perlmacs somewhere.
- Perlmacs is a program based on GNU Emacs with the Perl interpreter
linked in. More information is available at:
- http://john-edwin-tobey.org/perlmacs/index.html
- contact: zacheiss, mwhitson
- mail filtering
- It would be useful if there were documentation on how to achieve
reasonable mail filtering on athena, both with mh (the "recommended"
mail architecture) and perhaps with other mail filtering systems.
- It ought to be a goal that the system should be as easy to use
and as functional as standard PC mail readers (e.g. Eudora).
- contact: jhawk, cfox
Update iAthena
Inessential Athena is sipb's generic ``athena'' document, and, as
such, is almost always in need of updating. The document is somewhat
modular, making it relatively painless to add sections, etc. Grab a
copy, take a look at it, and think about sections to add/change.
Requires some knowledge of LaTeX, although it's relatively simple
LaTeX. (LaTeX 2.e coverage is one area that should probably be
mentioned a bit more in iAthena, for example. SSH is another.
what-runs-where is another. etc. :-)
contact: yandros, zacheiss
Install an ICQ client
ICQ is a popular instant messaging protocol many people have used
before coming to MIT, and which they wish to use from Athena
workstations. Several free ICQ clients for UNIX platforms exist, and
it would be nice if one of them was installed in a locker.
contact: cfox
Update the Linux-Athena installation documentation
Both of Inessential Linux-Athena and the Installing Linux-Athena one
sheet haven't really been updated since Redhat 4.2 was the released
version of Linux-Athena. Someone should update the documentation to
reflect new features in Redhat 5.2 Athena, such as the Athena sshd and
the use of the /etc/athena/access file.
contact: amu, linux-dev
Squid server maintenance
Squid is a popular software package used for running a caching web
proxy. SIPB is in the process of setting up a squid server and could
use a few more people interested in helping to maintain it.
Sub-projects include setting up and configuring squid on the machine
(an Alpha), release engineering some of the Athena environment for the
D/UX platform, and coming up with the best way of advertising this
service to the MIT community.
contact: zacheiss, mwhitson, squid
discuss interface hacking
Write an IMAP front-end for Discuss meetings, to allow reading of
Discuss meetings with modern, standard mail clients. It could even
support proper ACLs if the client is clever enough.
contact: nathanw
Oracle server maintenance
We're beginning to explore running Oracle on one of our servers to get
more experience with it and to make the technology available to anyone
with a project that would find a database useful. We're looking for
people interested in maintaining the database itself and for anyone
with an idea for a project that could make use of a database.
contact: hartmans, zacheiss
Windows NT
We have a Windows NT machine, and no one knows how to use it. We
should figure out how. Right now, this machine (deathtongue.mit.edu)
sits in the back of the SIPB office and is generally unloved; it would
be great if someone could turn it into a useful machine.
Specific things that probably need to be done include having it
multiboot NT 4 and NT 5 beta (it might already), installing some of
the MSDN software we get every month so users and members can make use
of it, and install some of the apps being developed locally (ZephyrNT,
maybe others).
contact: licks
IAP classes
Every IAP, SIPB trackes several classes on a variety of computer
related topics. In the past, topics have included C (see below),
shell scripting, SQL, LaTeX, emacs, lex and yacc, perl, and a variety
of other things. We're always looking for more teachers.
contact: xela
Crash Course in C (IAP 2000)
C^3 is one of SIPB's most extensive and most popular IAP courses,
consisting of eight two-hour meetings over a two-week period. Two
identical sections of the course are taught, one during the first
two weeks of IAP and one during the last two weeks of IAP.
Lecturers willing to teach for one or more class meetings are
needed. See "http://www.mattababy.org/~belmonte/Teaching/CCC/".
contact: belmonte
high school course in computer science (spring 2000)
A high school course on theoretical computer science and programming is
offered on weekends during the spring term. Teaching assistants are needed
to answer students' questions and to check programs and theoretical
assignments. The time commitment can be as little as a single morning or
afternoon, or can cover the entire course. See
"http://www.mattababy.org/~belmonte/Teaching/CS1/esp99.html".
contact: belmonte
Webmaster
The SIPB web pages could use a major overhaul. We could use as many
people as are interested to work on different parts or maybe to work
together on a coherent redesign.
The many lockers in the sipb afs cell could use some documentation
that talks about what's there and perhaps gives a small blurb about
what the various programs do. Having this up as part of the SIPB web
pages would be a great addition, and also a just fine stand-alone
project.
There's also need for more people to answer mail we receive about our
web pages, and to work on the scripts currently running on our web
server as well as add new ones.
contact: sly
"hacking code"
Of course, we also do a fair bit of just plain coding, and you're
welcome to join in. Write that program you've always thought would be
useful, and maybe put it in the sipb locker or one of the other
software lockers we maintain. If you're not sure what you'd like to
work on, there are always plenty of ideas someone can help you get
started with.
contact: golem
pZephyr
pZephyr is a project to produce a Perl extension that provides access
to all of the functionality provided by the zephyr library. Work was
begun on it some time back, but it's looking for someone else to
continue working with it.
contact: klmitch, pzephyr-request
software exploration and support: Alternative, user-friendly editors
While many hackers find that some combination of `emacs', `ed', and
`vi' meet their needs quite nicely, many new users would likely
prefer to use some alternative, more user-friendly text editor.
There are a numbr of good candidates available, and it could be very
useful to have some people (more than one person can work on this at
one time) examine the alternatives and attempt to provide support
for good candidates. Some good places to start looking are:
NEdit http://fnpspa.fnal.gov/nirvana/nedit.html
XCoral http://www.multimania.com/lfournigault/xcoral.html
Wily http://www.cs.usyd.edu.au/~gary/wily/
aee http://www.users.uswest.net/~hmahon/
gnotepad http://members.xoom.com/ackahn/gnp/
gnotepad+ http://ack.netpedia.net/gnp/
jedit http://www.gjt.org/~sp/jedit.html
Cooledit http://www.netins.net/showcase/Comput-IT/cooledit/index.html
contact: yandros
Graphical File Manager
Another key area open for improvement in the Athena user experience
is in file management; there basically isn't one. Athena has a
project underway that will most likely include the GNOME file
manager (gmc), so investigations can probably focus on other
available file managers. Most likely effort will be required to
make any candidate work nicely on Athena.
Gentoo http://www.obsession.se/gentoo/
Zfm http://zfm.xdev.org/E/index.html
Endeavor http://fox.mit.edu/xsw/edv.htm (MIT!)
contact: yandros
Web `message forum' system
While Athena users can use either (or both) MIT's and SIPB's web
servers to serve documents, neither group currently has support for
`web forum' services which are so common in many places. It could b
very useful to set up and maintain such a service on one of SIPB's
web servers. There are a number of existing packages which might be
used for such a system, including:
(Editor's Note: Academic Computing actually does sponsor a web-based
discussion forum, but the software is somewhat suboptimal. See:
http://webx.mit.edu
for an example.)
Phorum http://www.phorum.org/
Sporum http://smallpig.net/sporum/
eThreads http://ethreads.com/
FreeThreads http://www.freethreads.org/
NeoBoard http://www.neoqst.com/public/neoboard/neoboard.html
W-Agora http://w-agora.araxe.fr/
Bazaar http://www.icaap.org/Bazaar/
contact: yandros
PHP
It could be very useful to provide a php-enabled system that could
be reasonably opened up for general Athena-user use (perhaps on a
by-permission basis). Software changes may be required to make such
an environment `safe'.
PHP http://www.php.net/
Zope http://www.zope.org/
contact: yandros
calendar/schedule/pim system
Calendar/schedule/pim systems are poorly represented around Athena.
There are several different projects here for interested people:
local software (such as plan, jPilot, and KOrganizer); Web-based
software (WebCal, webplan); and `middleware' connectivity (mcal,
vcal)
plan http://www.bitrot.de/plan
jPilot http://jpilot.linuxbox.com/ (ok, so it's pilot-conn. so?)
KOrganizer http://people.redhat.com/pbrown/korganizer/
WebCal http://bulldog.tzo.org/webcal/webcal.html
webplan (part of plan; see above)
Gallant's http://www.gallanttech.com/resources/documentation/calendar/
mcal http://mcal.chek.com/
vCal http://www.imc.org/pdi/
contact: yandros
text searching
There's no good text indexing/searching system available on Athena,
and the system that are available are out of date. In addition to
providing the software, it would be interesting to maintain indexes
of some of the information already available to Athena users.
lq-text http://www.groveware.com/~lee/lqtext/
ISearch http://www.etymon.com/Isearch/
Perfect Search http://www.perlfect.com/freescripts/search/
Glimpse http://glimpse.cs.arizona.edu/
contact: yandros
ldap/directory service
MIT maintains an `official' opt-out directory for certain kinds of
athena users via finger @mit.edu, but the information is managed by
`official' parts of MIT. It might be interesting to provide an
externally-available opt-in ldap server that could provide
usr-configurable information. This would involve determining needs,
evaluating software, and installing and maintaining a service.
OpenLDAP http://www.openldap.org/
vCard http://www.imc.org/pdi/
contact: yandros
mozilla
'nuff said.
http://www.mozilla.org/
contact: yandros
Berlin
Berlin is an open-source windowing system being designed from the
basement up. It's features are too complex to mention here, but if
you've ever been annoyed at the architechture of X, you should take a
look at this (whether you will be overjoyed or aghast afterwards is
intentionally left unspecified).
This is a *large* project that will easily accomodate many people.
http://www.berlin-consortium.org/
contact: yandros (not that I have time to do anything with it)
Coda
Coda is a distributed filesystem being developed at CMU (home of
AFS). It aims to be secure, efficient, and scalable while
supporting two somewhat novel features: freely available source and
disconnected usage for mobile computing.
This is a *large* project that will easily accomodate many people.
http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/
contact: yandros, zacheiss, vice-squad
mailtoy - automated management interface for MIT mailing lists
A partially-designed project to add a majordomo-like interface to
MIT's moira-managed mailing lists. Has very good high-level
support, most tough design decisions done, in search of someone with
free time to implement. This could grow into a *very* popular
service.
contact: mailtoy@mit.edu
Office sensor
The SIPB owns an infrared tripwire that used to be set up such that
our NeXT machine would play an appropriate sound whenever someone
walked through the doorway, which was very useful for alerting
engrossed members that users have entered the office and are now
anxiously trying to decide if they should try to get someone's
attention *again*. The reflector has since been lost, along with
the documentation for the sensor, but a little bit of work could
probably restore this little piece of amusing/annoying SIPB
nostalgia to functioning condition.
contact: yandros
Cluster Maps
The w20 cluster is a somewhat disorganized mess. the existing
ascii-drawing map is out of date. Someone should update it.
It should involve simply walking around w20 with a copy of the old
one and marking the changes. Be sure to include the printers. An
enthusiastic person might also consider ways to concisely include
information like machine type and default printer.
contact: yandros
Locker List
Compile a list of useful lockers, with short descriptions of the
contents and a longer list with one-line descriptions. There are a
few such lists around, but they are mostly out of date.
contact: jemorris@mit.edu, yandros@mit.edu
Guile
Guile is the GNU Ubiquitous Intelligent Language for
Extension. It is a library that implements a Scheme interpreter that
can be embedded into other programs, to provide a consistent
configuration and extension language for all programs.
http://www.fsf.org/software/guile/guile.html
contact: yandros@mit.edu, /afs/sipb.mit.edu/project/scheme,
User FTP Site
Although normal athena users now have access to both AFS and at
least 2 web servers, sometimes it would be useful to make things
available via FTP. It could be useful to have someone investigate
creating an FTP server that allows access to `special' directories
in user's afs homedirs (perhaps Public, or perhaps something new
like `ftp'). I would suggest that users be required to do something
(`registering' in some way) before the ftp server would allow access
to those files. Possibilities include running the ftp server as an
authenticated specific user, using IP acls, or using some kind of
krb5 credentials-forwarding to optionally allow write access.
contact: yandros@mit.edu
IPv6 support
IPv6 is a new protocol derived from the existing IP version 4
protocol used by the Internet, in an attempt to address some of the
scaling issues (such as a shortage of address space).
This is a *large* project that will easily accomodate many people.
Another web page contains
current status and possible work items.
contact: sommerfeld@alum.mit.edu
Old Projects
(These may or may not still be things that need to be done; check with
the contacts before even thinking about it.)
Project: Windows NT
Contact: licks@mit.edu, a public mailing list of people interested
in SIPB NT things (add yourself!)
Time Frame: ongoing
Date Added: 10/26/98
Description: We have a Windows NT machine, and no one knows
how to use it. We should figure out how. Specific things that probably
need to be done: repartition and install both NT 4 and beta 5, buy a netcard
for the machine and get it on the net, install some of the developer packages,
talk to the Pismere people and get a copy of ZephyrNT and anything else
they're working on.
Experience Necessary: Having used NT before would be helpful,
but isn't necessary.
Project: Machine room shelving
Contact: ghudson@mit.edu
Time Frame: over winter break
Date Added: 10/26/98
Description: Greg has ordered some shelves to reorganize the
SIPB machine room, and will probably deal with this over winter break.
If you'll be around, he could use some help. Much of this may be physical
or mechanical work (moving machines and shelves, and putting them together),
but you'll also get a chance to see what services run on what machines,
how to deal with an outage, and learn about general machine room issues.
Experience Necessary: None.
Project: Clue dump
Contact: kretch@mit.edu, to schedule a time
Time Frame: about an hour, any evening
Date Added: 10/26/98
Description: We can always use more clue dumps in computer-related
areas. There are two options here: 1. If you have something you think you
know a bit about (you don't have to be an expert) and think others might
want to know about, lead an informal discussion on it. 2. If you have something
you want to know about, find someone who knows about it and convince them
to lead an informal discussion on it.
Experience Necessary: Know something about some area, or know
someone who does.
Project: IAP class
Contact: xela@mit.edu, to schedule a time and registration with
the IAP folks
Time Frame: IAP
Date Added: 10/26/98
Description: Teach a class on some computer-related topic you
know about during IAP. You need to let xela know
if you're interested in doing a class by Nov. 1, 1998 so he can get you
registered.
Project: sipb
locker
Contact: svalente@mit.edu
Time Frame: ongoing
Date Added: 10/26/98
Description: Help maintain software in
the SIPB locker. See [7019] in bug_sipb for more information, or ask a
member if you don't know how to find that in discuss.
Experience Necessary: C programming skills
Project: Linux-Athena testing
Contact: linux-dev@mit.edu
Time Frame: soon
Date Added: 10/26/98
Description: The linux-dev people are working on a new release
of Linux-Athena based on RedHat 5.1. Pretty soon they'll be ready for people
to do beta testing. So, if you have a spare partition on your PC, or can
make one, try it out! They'll send mail to sipb-office@mit.edu when it's
ready for testing.
Experience Necessary: Ability to submit a well described bug
report (you can learn this while doing it), tolerance for using a slightly
buggy system.
Project: Webmaster
Contact: webmaster@mit.edu
Time Frame: now
Date Added: 10/26/98
Description: We could use a few new people.
Experience Necessary: People that know perl or C are useful
(script writing/updating, for example, the counter, automation, etc). People
to beat on the queue (of generic webmaster requests) are also wanted.
Project: Gnome
Contact: yandros@mit.edu
Time Frame: now
Date Added: 10/26/98
Description: There's a pretty neat user interface/API system
called `gnome' available on the net (http://www.gnome.org/)
that really should be supported on athena. This is a large, large
system, with many parts that could be worked upon more seperately or in
groups.
Experience Necessary: Requires general knowldge of unix/X development,
including portability between `linux' and `unix'. This `project'
is pretty darned open-ended.
Project: lyx
Contact: yandros@mit.edu
Time Frame: now
Date Added: 10/26/98
Description: There's a pretty neat software package for GUI
editting of [La?]TeX called `lyx' that really should be installed on athena,
but no one (as far as I know) has done anything yet.
Experience Necessary: Requires knowledge of installation of
programs under unix/athena. Interest/experience with [La]TeX and X is proabbly
helpful.
Project: Update iAthena
Contact: yandros@mit.edu
Time Frame: now
Date Added: 10/26/98
Description: Inessential Athena is sipb's generic ``athena''
document, and, as such, is almost always in need of updating. The
document is somewhat modular, making it relatively painless to add sections,
etc. Grab a copy, take a look at it, and think about sections to
add/change.
Experience Necessary: Requires some knowledge of LaTeX, although
it's relatively simple LaTeX. (LaTeX 2.e coverage is one area that should
probably be mentioned a bit more in iAthena, for example. SSH is
another. what-runs-where is another. etc. :-)
Project: plan
Contact: yandros@mit.edu
Time Frame: now
Date Added: 10/26/98
Description: Someone should install `plan', a relatively nice
calendaring program, in the sipb locker. Sources are in /mit/sipb/src,
but some work is required to integrate it nicely with athena.
Experience Necessary: Requires some knowledge about building
and installing programs on athena. It would be nice to have some
vauge clue/interest about athena/kerberos would be nice.
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