Metalab Changes Its Name (Again)

Simon Spero writes: "Metalab, the site formerly known as SunSITE, is now www.ibiblio.org . This change has been made in response to a donation by Bob Young and Mark Ewing of Redhat of $4 million; this grant will be used to apply the techniques and philosophies of the Open Source Movement to more traditional kinds of information, creating the first of a new kind of digital library. " Metalab URLs will continue to work. Here's the FAQ and some more press coverage. Really the name change is secondary (I still hadn't stopped using sunsite bookmarks) but this could be really cool.

Comments

The Last Best Place

[Bowie J. Poag]

After VA Linux Systems decided to rip us off and left us bleeding from the ass, (*cough*SOURCEFORGE*cough*) we opted to leave and do it on our own rather than stay and continue to take it. One of the first places to offer us a new home after we cut our ties with VA was MetaLab. They've been extremely helpful to us from the very beginning, going out of their way to make the transition as painless as possible. And, i'm quite happy to say that since April we've managed to regain our audience to the point where we are pulling in more people and more traffic now than at any point during our time with VA..

MetaLab is one of the last places i've ever seen that's willing to lend a hand and not really expect anything in return...So today, i've regained a little faith in Red Hat. Kudos to them for supporting an honest-to-God good thing. There needs to be an alternative to the VA resource monopoly, and SunSITE/MetaLab/iBiblio represents that ideal perfectly. Considering SourceForge's Terms Of Service agreement, you'de be insane to host your project there. Youre essentially giving up your right to own that what you've created. When you move your project to SourceForge, VA now owns your project..It says so clearly in their TOS Agreement. They can turn around and sell your work without giving you a cent, or co-opt your work like they did with us, and leave you holding the bag. They're opportunists. The guys at MetaLab just want to provide a home for developers..they have no vested interests in what goes on there.

Thanks, Bob. :)

My $0.02,


Bowie J. Poag

This Just In....

[xianzombie]

The company known as Ibiblio, formerly known as Metalab, formerly known as SunSITE, has now issued a press release stating that their new name will be F**kedCompany, as soon as they complete the purchase of the domain FuckedCompany.com

ibiblio

[wishus]

i'm assuming that's pronounced "eye-bib-lee-o" and not "ib-ib-lee-o" or "ibby-blee-o" or "i-buy-bly-o" or somethign else.. the word just looks mangled..

wish
Vote for freedom!
---

Interesting

[zpengo]

I've always been fascinated by the idea of applying the concepts of a movement to a medium for which they were not originally intended. The Open Source idea could be applied in useful ways not only to software, but also to politics, education, etc.; Imagine an Open Source religion!

I wonder what would happen, though, if Zen programming were created. Or perhaps Expressionist network design. Or Republican computer repair....

Re:Interesting

[Samrobb]

• Republican computer repair: The manufacturer of your computer is not liable, and furthermore, will be suing your under the DMCA for attempting to bypass their "System Down (tm)"security features.
• Democrat computer repair: Hmm, yes, your system's down... now, we'll take your money and use it to buy new computers for the needy. You think that's wrong? Oh, sorry - you're right. I forgot to add in the sales tax on that.
• Far Right computer repair: It's it's own damn fault. If the lazy subsidized-electicity-sucking scum would just get up the motivation to work, it could pull itself out of this hole.
• Far Left computer repair: Don't worry, we'll just pass a law making it a crime for a computer to be down. There! Now, your computer is OK. What do you mean, it's still down? If it were down, you'd be breaking the law, and you don't want me to have to call the police now, do you... good! See, I knew that would fix it.
• Libertarian computer repair: I'll fix it if you admit that you screwed it up in the first place.
• FSF computer repair: Hmm. Yeah, I can fix it. Before I do that, though, you'll have to GPL your computer, your brainwaves, your dog, and then beg for forgiveness.
• Open Source computer repair: today on /. - Microsoft software can cause overclocked CPUs without cooling fans or heat sinks to burst into flame and email the contents of your hard drive to Redmond.

the donation did not come from RedHat

[option8]

(consider i'm a little miffed that, once again, i submit a story in a timely manner, holding off on posting until the day of the press conference, and several days later another poster gets the same story posted where mine was rejected. silly me, i thought i had the inside track - being one of the designers of the new ibilio site.. oh well)

the donation did not come from RedHat, as many readers assume. the headline even says the money came from individual investors, which is closer to the mark. reading the full story will reveal that the $4 million donation came from the Red Hat Center (center of what?) which is a "non-profit organization that supports, promotes, and engages in a wide range of initiatives to advance the principles of transparent technology" (Bob Young's term for open source)

the guys from Red Hat started the Center with their own money (acquired from.. duh!) to use in promoting open source projects, even those in competition with RedHat.

RHC has also given big chunks of change (tho none in the $4 million range) to the EFF (electronic fronteirs foundation), probono.net, and the Center for Media Education in Washington, DC

something folks haven't said much about is the plan to make ibiblio more slashdot-like in its sense of community, discussions, and ranking of the content. silly me, i would have thought cmdrtaco would have mentioned that :)

Re:the donation did not come from RedHat

[pjones]

here are a few things that i hope will clear a little air:

first the gift/collaboration is with the red hat center, a private foundation founded by marc ewing and bob young. not from red hat inc.

second, the new library idea is that we hope to use tools and experience familiar to those of us in open source development in other areas. we've done shared metadata, for example, for years in the LSMs and in the software archive on metalab/ibiblio sunsite (you pick).

This article in the Chronicle of High Education gets it pretty much right. i have an article forthcoming in CACM which tells more and can post to folks who are interested.

we last changed our name, from sunsite.unc.edu, because sunsite was owned by sun. when we went to enter into a collaboration with red hat center, they thought that a new name that showed something of a larger direction would be appropriate. i agree. i can't type it yet either, but then i typed meatbal for metalab for the past three years too

it's is our hope to create a library as noisy and democratic as slashdot itself. it will take us a while to combine, develop and implement the great ideas from the LSMs, slashdot, advogato, apache, sourceforge and the multitude of projects on sunsite/metalab/ibiblio. and we want your help.

peace love and sharing

contributor-run library, name change, etc

[pjones]

not a catchy title, but here are a few things that i hope will clear a little air:

first the gift/collaboration is with the red hat center, a private foundation founded by marc ewing and bob young. not from red hat inc.

second, the new library idea is that we hope to use tools and experience familiar to those of us in open source development in other areas. we've done shared metadata, for example, for years in the LSMs and in the software archive on metalab/ibiblio/sunsite (you pick). This article in the Chronicle of High Education gets it pretty much right. i have an article forthcoming in CACM which tells more and can post to folks who are interested.

we last changed our name, from sunsite.unc.edu, because sunsite was owned by sun. when we went to enter into a collaboration with red hat center, they thought that a new name that showed something of a larger direction would be appropriate. i agree. i can't type it yet either, but then i typed meatbal for metalab for the past three years too

it's is our hope to create a library as noisy and democratic as slashdot itself. it will take us a while to combine, develop and implement the great ideas from the LSMs, slashdot, advogato, apache, sourceforge and the multitude of projects on sunsite/metalab/ibiblio. and we want your help.

peace love and sharing

Paul

looks like more and more musicians are getting it

[brokeninside]

Musician Roger McGuinn, former leader of the Byrds, was part of the fanfare Monday morning. Once each month for the past several years, McGuinn has recorded his own performance of a traditional folk song and uploaded it to MetaLab for free distribution on the Web.

I had no idea this was going on. This is just too cool for words. It is so rejeuvinating to hear about an artist that cares about music as art and is doing something about it instead of using music as a ticket to noteriety and money.

Anybody else hear that the Smashing Pumpkins released their final album only as .mp3? Well, they did press 25 vinyl copies...

Maybe Sunsite, er, Metalab, er, iBiblio can do for music what mp3.com and napster have claimed they were going to do and failed.