Pubnix Admin Interviews - #3, Ryan Sayre, Skylab.org The previous two Pubnix Admin Interviews were with admins from Tilde servers. This time, we interview Ryan Sayre (kraptv) of Portland, OR. Ryan is part of the admin team that runs skylab.org[1], a system that got its start as an internet services co-op. Skylab has been around much longer than most Tildes, and is in fact one of the oldest active pubnixes. While the active membership isn't huge right now, it has had a user count in the 100s in the past. So Skylab exists as sort of a hidden gem now, and some of the things that make it unique are probably very interesting to the current generation of pubnix members. Skylab not only offers the standard *nix services, but also has a small but active Freenode IRC channel, #skylab. On their IRC channel, you get a taste of the old school geek culture that exists on Skylab - retro computing, amateur radio, programming (and even home appliances). One of the most popular topics is ham radio. And these guys aren't new hams either. Take a look at Ryan's great talk (here [2]) at the EMF 2014 Conference, for example, titled "Amateur Radio - The Original Nerd Hobby". Whether you are a Skylab shell account owner or not, you can strike up interesting, nerdy conversation #skylab. Ryan's history is interesting to me in that it carries a lot of links to the early days of both pubnixes and BBSes. Skylab also has quite a history, from it's start in 1997 to the present system running FreeBSD on a DO droplet, a lot has happened. Take a look at the Skylab website[1] for some of that history. And now, on to the Q&A. Questions will be prefixed by a "Q" and answers by an "A". -- Q: Ryan, how did you first get into computers? ...and multi-user system administration? A: I first got into computers in the early 1980s from a neighbor who was an amateur radio enthusiast who was also experimenting with microcomputers. He started with a TRS-80 Model 3 and graduated quickly to a Commodore 64. We got a Commodore 64 and a 300 Baud VICMODEM which allowed me to call local BBSes. Some of the dial-in numbers were eventually multi-user UNIX systems (Agora - now RainDrop systems, PDaxs, evolved into Teleport and ultimately acquired by Earthlink), and by that time, Linux was starting to evolve into something fun. Four friends co-operatively setup a Linux box (a 486) in a University dorm and started running services for friends and friends-of-friends. At the same time, Portland State University had a wonderful free lecture series called the Braindump (https://braindump.cat.pdx.edu/braindump/) that taught and celebrated system administration. -- Q: What was your first experience with pubnixes or similar computer-based social communities? A: Color 64 BBSes in the mid to late 1980s were just interesting and colorful for a Commodore 64 user with a 300 baud modem, Hermes and WWIV BBSes were cool fringe culture and conversations, lots of weird and exciting text files being shared around too. FirstClass BBSes were an amazing GUI BBS network that made it easy to relay messages and files. Lots of friendly people who would trade warez face to face later on. -- Q: What pubnixes were you involved with before you started your own? What did you like about those? A: None, sadly. We peripherally knew about SDF because it seemed to be out there and Agora seemed to be quasi-commercial, so we just started our own and got away with colocating in a lot of free places until we ran out of personal favors with data center owners. I think we had to start paying for our service around 2006 since starting in 1997. Almost a decade of free everything (besides the hardware) was pretty awesome though. -- Q: When did you start your current pubnix? Briefly describe the history of your pubnix from start until now. A: We started in 1997. It was a wonderful group of four people - me - Ryan Sayre, Chris Lattner, James Neal, and Michael Plump. Chris Lattner is now known well for co-authoring CLANG/LLVM/Xcode/Swift and many more amazing things. James Neal was a passionate sysadmin who founded and still operates the maker-friendly OSHpark circuit board fabrication service. Michael Plump went onto being instrumental at Google Fiber. -- Q: What motivated you to start your pubnix? A: Given the value of the BBS and its dynamic culture versus some sort of moderated experience with services like CompuServe, Prodigy, AOL, starting skylab.org seemed completely natural and fun. Why pay for something that you dont want when you can choose your own destiny with free software and interacting with like minded people? -- Q: How would you describe your pubnix to someone who is not familiar with pubnixes? A: Its basically a pre-cloud internet cooperative that allows you to share infrastructure and ideas with others on the same system. With a commercial cloud provider, you dont know your neighbors, and with a pubnix, you actively share the garden. -- Q: What are the biggest challenges you face as a pubnix admin? A: Everyone has grown up and cultivates their own relationships outside of the system now, so Im left keeping the lights on. I have a small fraction of friends who actively communicate on our IRC channel, which is wonderful, but the diversity of chatter and number of people is much lower. I pay for it monthly because I ended up being the most invested in its legacy. -- Q: What software have you developed? If more than one, what is your favorite? A: We developed geektalk.org, a proto-Slack anti-IRC chat system that had all sorts of bugs and chatter. People liked it because it was NOT IRC, no splits, no weird spam, and people were mostly friendly but ready to have a healthy debate. -- Q: What are your hopes for the future of pubnixes? A: I hope that if people are seriously tired of the commercial-infused zeitgeist machines (Facebook, Twitter, various blogging platforms, etc.) that a pubnix environment can step up with the right mix of services to bring home and social enrichment to a lot of people. -- Q: What should pubnixes be doing that they aren't yet doing? A: Developing social software and attracting a combination of creative, friendly people with the technocrats. Get people interested in and being comfortable with interface weirdness in exchange for knowing their content is not getting mined for commercial exploitation. -- Q: Are the Internet's best years behind us or ahead? A: The innocence of early adopter pure-heartedness is basically gone with the Internet approaching beyond-utility status of some stating access to it is a human right. If you bring everyone to the dinner table, you also bring some pretty complicated interactions for people. -- Q: What do you do when you're not on the internet? A: Currently Im the primary caregiver for a toddler. I am working on refurbishing the house we moved in six months ago, and fantasizing about going to the beach and the mountains. -- Q: What else do you enjoy doing with computers besides pubnix-related activity? A: Resto-modding old Apple Macintosh computers, experimenting in dumb Raspberry Pi tricks, and playing with mechanical keyboard culture. -- Q: If people want to follow you online, where should they look? mastodon address? gopher hole? gemini capsule? git repo? etc? A: Skylab.org is not cool enough to have any of that. Maybe someday in the future. [cmccabe:] If you would like to learn more about Skylab or Ryan Sayre, poke your head into #skylab on Freenode, or you may also find him on Twitter: @ryanslayer -- Q: What is a good interview question I didn't ask you? A: What other pubnixes do you admire, and why? Is there a particular user experience you strive for? Got any interesting good and/or bad user stories? What would you need to make this thing appeal to more people? -- Q: Answer the question(s) you entered into #17: A: I admire SDF because its an absolute juggernaut. It is super-solid and despite it not being pretty, it just kinda works. Their ethos for education and experimenting with services encouraged the users to lean in and participate. We strive for users to get the multi-user UNIX experience, to poke around and see other interesting users, and to be an active and continuous participant. We encourage them to join the IRC group, Facebook (if wanted), and other venues to feel part of a community. Oh man. Awesome users include people with weirdly-popular websites (example: user Chugga seemed to have the de-facto page on raising crickets for many years - how random!) and people who just expressed gratitude for helping them out (frequently not necessarily related to our system). Bad users included ones that just used us for storage and compute and ran automated antisocial software - they had no remorse when we pointed out this was very bad for the rest of us. We need to make things easier and make it easy to understand why seeking our community is worth coming to and participating in. If that means evolving the platform or seeking out a different audience, I dont know. -- Thanks Ryan! This has been the third in the series of Pubnix Admin Interviews. In the next interview, we will hear from a sysadmin at a very different type of system, one that combines elements of BBSes and pubnixes, and that holds a big emphasis on DIY tooling and resource minimalism. -- [1] Skylab: https://skylab.org [2] EMF Conference talk, 2014: Ryan Sayre - Amateur Radio: The Original Nerd Hobby https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFbgWbWGkMM [3] The BBS Documentary http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/