SIPB Project List
The fuzzball will take you home-->
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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, and so forth 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 by using
the Web-based Discuss 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
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.