Twouldn't be that expensive to ask all the SI people who breathe through their nose, to chip in, buy a server, a high speed line, put it at a server farm and co-op it with a nominal fee system. There is some good free perl software that would fit nicely on a Linux server called hypernews. I have installed it on my own computer. It also provides an email gateway for the thread poster which is handy. It would be a few small shekels to upgrade it to a nice interface. An example of a customized interface using this software is at stockclub.com Another type of free software that could be used is called Web Crossing. There are about 40 posting software packages of various costs. SI used to have about 10,000 posts per day. Right now they are probably at 1500 or less. SI was really a lauch platform for the Datek trading software and site, which is what revolutionaized day trading in the world. That was sold out (cheap) with SI for 18 million a ways back.
I estimate that to start a website that used SI type interface, non threaded customer driven posting, you would need about 35,000 (hardware and software upgrading) plus monthly hi speed line costs and remuneration for some admin people. It has to run 24-7. I know some farms who will take the server, but they make money on the hi speed line. Wholesale the line costs about 2500 a month for 2500 megabits per second. the farms want 1000 a month for 100 megabits. Cost per month would be about 6,000 to maintain. (3 admin people plus hi speed). Not cheap anymore is it?
It only needs about 500 people to get started. My guess is most are too apathetic to do anything.
SI started in a basement with 3 people. It could be started small, but it needs that interface, and customizing hypernews in perl (It is 80 .pl files and
one megabyte of files could take a buck or two. I know some programmers, but they will want more than a dollar to do it.
mailto:echarters@sympatico.ca
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