Pubnix Admin Interviews - #2, Ben Morrison, tilde.institute This is the second part of an interview series with pubnix admins. This series is part of the Pubnix History Project, an effort to explore and document the history of an interesting aspect of the non-commercial internet. More information about the interview series, including a table of contents that will be updated with each new interview, can be found here: [1]. Interviews will initially be published on different servers and different protocols (e.g. gopher, gemini and http), but this table of contents will be regularly updated to point to them all. Today's interview is with Ben Morrison (~gbmor) of Atlanta, Georgia, admin of tilde.institute[2]. Tildes and the Tildeverse were described in the previous interview with Ben Harris, and more tilde admins will be interviewed in the future. tilde.institute is unique in that it is one of the few tildes not primarily based on Linux -- it runs OpenBSD. In old school pubnixes, from the 1980s and 90s, access to Unix and Unix-like OSes was less common, so the "access" part of "public access unix systems" was a big deal. Now, anyone can easily run a *nix system at home, on a raspberry pi or any spare hardware, and the exciting part of pubnixes is learning about these systems and open source software in a social environment. tilde.insitute fits this model exactly and is a great place to learn about OpenBSD with other enthusiasts. Ben shares another commonality with the previous interviewee (Ben Harris) in that they both were first exposed to pubnixes via SDF. I suspect this is a trend we will see continue in many future interviews. And now, on to the Q&A. Questions and Answers will be prefaced with a 'Q' and an 'A', respectively. - Q&A - Q: How did you first get into computers? ...and multi-user system administration? A: While I had used computers at school, my family didn't have a computer until I was in the fourth grade, in early 1999. Once we got one, I dove in. By 2000 I was learning how to make rudimentary web sites and had found IRC. This is going to sound kind of strange, but around this time this person convinced me to run a binary that was infected with sub7. After they got tired of opening my CD-ROM drive and doing the 'wake up, neo' matrix thing on the screen, they told me what they did, and kind of became a short-term mentor. They explained how it worked. They told me about this thing called 'Linux', and lots of other stuff I can't remember. It kind of jumpstarted my interest. I started exploring the command line afterward with Cygwin and an account at sdf.org, which was my first exposure to a public-access UNIX system. In early 2002, I built a PC with the help of a local PC shop, and was dual-booting Windows XP with Red Hat Linux (I think 7.3). Around the time Vista came out, I was graduating high school, and decided to just get rid of Windows (also, OpenOffice at the time had usable MS Word interop, and writing school assignments was the majority of my Windows time). >From there, I never really stopped learning. I ran several servers over the years intended for use with a myriad of things. -- Q. What was your first experience with pubnixes or similar computer-based social communities? A: I first found sdf.org in 2001-ish, maybe late 2000, and thought it was the coolest thing. At first I knew basically nothing about UNIX-like OSes aside from "this is a thing." Prior to that, I had been active on IRC. -- Q: What pubnixes were you involved with before you started your own? What did you like about those? (Feel free to mention dislikes too, if relevant.) A: I have been an on-off user of sdf.org for a long time. Eventually I found tilde.town, and then shortly afterwards tilde.team and the tildeverse. The sense of community really stood out to me - people collaborating and building things together, even if the only justification was "because we want to". It is a refreshing alternative to the now-heavily-commercialized web. Like a return to hobbyist endeavors and creating things because it's fun. -- Q: When did you start your current pubnix? Briefly describe the history of your pubnix from start until now. A: In late 2018, after discovering tilde.town, tilde.team, and the larger tildeverse, I saw that, at the time at least, all the pubnixes in that immediate milieu were Linux-based. The main exception was tilde.team's FreeBSD option. I figured that there would be enough interest in a pubnix using OpenBSD for it to be a viable project, so in November of that year I started putting tilde.institute together. It's been around 19 months now, and everything's going well. -- Q: What motivated you to start your pubnix? A: I wanted to provide a space for people to play around with OpenBSD, write software, socialize, etc. -- Q: How would you describe your pubnix to someone who is not familiar with pubnixes? A: It's a non-commercial space for people to socialize, write software, and learn about UNIX. -- Q: What are the biggest challenges you face as a pubnix admin? A: Luckily, I haven't had to deal with many malicious users. But, I'd say it's those few malicious users. They can be sneaky, and not very obvious, and their presence can affect the existence of the system itself. -- Q: What software have you developed? If more than one, what is your favorite? A: wrote a twtxt registry server about a year ago. twtxt is a niche microblogging platform using plain text files served over HTTP. It's called getwtxt, and an instance runs on https://twtxt.tilde.institute Repo: https://github.com/getwtxt/getwtxt A while back I started working on a currency simulation for pubnixes. Not cryptocurrency. I have basically been implementing a spec written by aewens and published on tildegit.org. Development of it has kind of stalled, but I do fully intend on finishing it. I need to rewrite what I have since I've come up with some better ways of architecting it than I did initially. Repo: https://github.com/tildecoin/rtcoin I've also been working on a gemini protocol server. Right now it just serves static content, but I'm going to be adding in CGI support and user directories fairly soon. Repo: https://github.com/gbmor/laika I couldn't pick a firm favorite, really. 'getwtxt' is feature-complete, so maybe that one? -- Q: What are your hopes for the future of pubnixes? A: I want them to flourish, and for plenty of people who want to build things and contribute to an open, non-commercial space to join in. -- Q: What should pubnixes be doing that they aren't yet doing? A: I'm not sure, really. Maybe explore some less traditional operating systems. OpenSolaris/OpenIndiana/Illumos (like maybe OmniOS CE), plan9, etc. -- Q: Are the Internet's best years behind us or ahead? A: Different years are behind us, and different years are ahead of us. The barrier to entry to the UNIXy world is lowering as technical knowledge becomes more commonplace among people. I hope in the future we see even more interest in the free software movement and more people who want to join in, can. -- Q: What do you do when you're not on the internet? A: There's other things? No, really. Biking, camping, fishing, high-stakes heists (don't tell interpol), photography, wrestling with dogs, reading, exploring old buildings like warehouses, kayaking. -- Q: What else do you enjoy doing with computers besides pubnix-related activity? A: Maybe keeping up with news and current events, or maybe playing a MUD or a roguelike, or even a modern video game (occasionally). Writing code, too. -- Q: If people want to follow you online, where should they look? A: Personal site: https://gbmor.dev Github: https://github.com/gbmor -- Q: What is a good interview question I didn't ask you? (This will also help improve these interviews for subsequent interviewees.) A: How many zombies would Rob Zombie rob if Rob Zombie could rob zombies? -- Q: Answer the question you entered into #17: A: The Woodchuck Bureau of Investigation has an open case on it. -- Thanks Ben! In the next edition of Pubnix Admin Interviews, we depart from the tildeverse and meet an admin who runs another style of pubnix. As always, if you have any feedback or suggestions for this series, shoot me an email: cmccabe AT rawtext.club. I am extra interested in identifying pubnix admins of old, retired pubnixes -- so if you know of any, please let me know. -- References [1] Pubnix Admin Interviews - Table of Contents Gemini: gemini://rawtext.club:1965/~cmccabe/pubnix-admins.gmi Gopher, coming soon here: gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space:70/1/~cmccabe/ [2] tilde.institute https://tilde.institute