"Fossies" - the Fresh Open Source Software Archive

Member "ark-20050419/arksf1/webpages/sysadmin-history.htma" (26 May 2004, 4938 Bytes) of package /linux/privat/old/ark-arksf1-20050419.tar.gz:

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    4  . Copyright (c) 2001,2004, Will Partain
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   39  ............................................................ -->
   40 <!-- $Revision: 1.4 $ -->
   41 <!-- tag: Sysadmin history -->
   42 <h1>System Administrator History, 200x</h1>
   43 
   44 This is a note about "where we are" in System Administrator
   45 History, in the year 200x.
   46 
   47 <!-- ================================================= -->
   48 <h2><a name="sysadmin-role">The role of system administrat{ion,ors}</a></h2>
   49 
   50 In the 1960s (say), if you bought a computer, it cost you a
   51 few million dollars, and you accepted that you needed to
   52 spend serious money on High Priests in White Coats to feed
   53 it and care for it... and <em>think hard</em> about how to make
   54 that expensive beast do the best for your needs.
   55 <p>
   56 Cheap PCs and shrink-wrap software have given rise to the
   57 (mostly-implicit) notion that system administrators
   58 shouldn't exist.  And if they insist on doing so, they
   59 should be as cheap as the hardware they look after.
   60 Certainly, in the corporate world, "IT" is mostly seen as a
   61 cost to be controlled -- nothing more, nothing less.  And
   62 it's a big self-delusion mostly: a company may not be
   63 spending money on "system administrators", but there are
   64 probably plenty of non-"system administrators" devoting huge 
   65 fractions of their time to, um, well, guess what...
   66 <p>
   67 Nonetheless, it is still a tough time to be arguing "Yes,
   68 the hardware is cheap, but you really would be wise to spend
   69 Real Money on the people to help you do Wondrous and Amazing
   70 Things with it".
   71 <p>
   72 At no point, 1960s or now, have sysadmins been given any
   73 respect whatsoever :-)
   74 
   75 <!-- ================================================= -->
   76 <h2><a name="open-src-sysadmin">"Open source" and sysadmin</a></h2>
   77 
   78 A stated aim of the Arusha Project is to develop "<a
   79 href="key-ideas.html#open-src-equiv">a sysadmin equivalent
   80 to open-source software development</a>".  We are not implying
   81 that we're the first folks to think of such a thing...
   82 <p>
   83 The early days of Unix, when you got a "no-support" Unix
   84 source tape from Bell Labs, were very open-source-ish --
   85 code and ideas were very freely exchanged.  Even more true
   86 after BSD Unix came into its own, and networking started to
   87 be pervasive.
   88 <p>
   89 If you had BSD Unix in (say) 1980, you expected to hack on
   90 your kernel [and everything else] (and to pay someone to do
   91 so).  It was nothing for a CS dept to say, "Oh, we'll have
   92 to write a driver for that, then".  And such code was quite
   93 freely exchanged.
   94 <p>
   95 Nowadays, the picture has changed.  The huge majority of
   96 people run stock kernels, for example.  Fortunately, the
   97 onslaught of free Unices is taking us back closer to the Old
   98 Ways (and a good thing, too: see our <a
   99 href="sourceism.html">"sourceism" comments</a>).
  100 <p>
  101 We do have open-source activity for many packages that
  102 sysadmins use -- very lovely, too... -- and we have
  103 newsgroups/mailing-lists which can be most helpful for
  104 getting help with problems, etc.
  105 <p>
  106 But there's no "open-source"-like stuff for the actual
  107 hardcore sysadmin-ish stuff that happens!  E.g. "Here's the
  108 exact way I got my ACME Whizzy 200 printer to work via
  109 Appletalk..."  There's a whole swathe of sysadmin "added
  110 value" that isn't being exchanged, reused, etc., in any
  111 systematic way.
  112 <p>
  113 We hope the Arusha Project will fix that.
  114 
  115 <!-- the end -->
  116