80 lines
3.5 KiB
Plaintext
80 lines
3.5 KiB
Plaintext
The Tardis Charter (v3.0)
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What is The Tardis?
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The Tardis is a computing service offered and maintained by the Tardis Project.
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The Tardis Project exists to provide this service for whoever wants to use it,
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without regard to academic or commercial affiliations.
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The Tardis is currently a Sun 3/260 minicomputer running SunOS 4.1.1, although
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it is expected we will shortly have other machines running providing other
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services. It is connected to Edinburgh Universitys network through a router and
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packet-filtering bridge. (If this means nothing to you, don't worry. You'll
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learn.) It provides a place where people can
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learn about computing and programming generally,
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learn about UNIX in particular,
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access electronic mail and USENET news;
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write and share software;
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do anything else within reason.
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Tardis is set up to allow connections from the Internet, but not to allow
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outgoing terminal connections to the Internet. Ie., you can telnet to Tardis,
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but from Tardis you cant telnet out.
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How Is The Tardis Run?
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There is no official management, only a group of users (collectively,
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'timelords') who take voluntarily take responsibility for some of those tasks
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normally carried out by system managment. These tasks include (but are not
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limited to) backups, accrediting new users, maintaining the hardware and system
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software, and liaising with the outside world. Anyone who demonstrates that they
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are capable of handling the responsibility may join this group. Most of the
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current group in fact have full time jobs outwith their Tardis involvement.
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Many things which might normally be carried out by system management in a
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conventional system are things which users are encouraged to do for themselves,
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or help with if others are doing them. This includes rebooting the machine if it
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crashes, backing up their own files, and helping with dumps. It also includes
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any aspect of the machine's day-to-day existence which users feel able to deal
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with. Only if you can't fix it yourself should you ask the timelords to,
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although as a matter of courtesy they should also be informed of any fixes that
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are made by users.
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In many respects, then, Tardis is essentially an anarchy. The most significant
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aspect of Tardis use is that of personal responsibility:
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USERS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR OWN ACTIONS ON THE MACHINE.
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This is not to say that "anything goes". People who indulge in irresponsible
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behaviour will be censured, not by the timelords but by everyone who uses the
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machine.
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IT IS IMPORTANT TO REALISE THAT THE TARDIS DEPENDS ON THE GOODWILL OF
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OTHERS TO PROVIDE MANY OF ITS MOST USEFUL SERVICES.
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In particular, the Tardis Project relies on the support of Edinburgh University
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Computing Service and Edinburgh University Computer Science Department, for
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network connections, space for the machinary, and power.
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IRRESPONSIBLE USERS ENDANGER NOT ONLY THEMSELVES, BUT THE ENTIRE FUTURE OF
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TARDIS SERVICES.
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By exercising a bit of reason and restraint, the Tardis can be made to work.
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Without it, it will probably die.
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Sponsors Scheme
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Every user on Tardis must have a sponsor - an existing user who recommends them
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for a Tardis account. In general, your sponsor should have been a Tardis user
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for a reasonable period of time, and may not sponsor more than two users.
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Your sponsor is resposible for your behaviour, to an extent. If we have to
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remove your Tardis account due to your actions we reserve the right to remove
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your sponsors account also.
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However, we have never yet had to remove a user from Tardis, and hope never to
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have to do so.
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Share and Enjoy!
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