Pubnixes

This is my landing page for information and links about pubnixes.

Matters are complicated by the significant overlap between pubnixes, gopher and other areas of interest.

Definitions

I take a "broad" definition of pubnix, to include any big remotely accessible UNIX/Linux machine which permits shell access for users beyond a single household, employer or family. A "narrow" definition of pubnix would restrict that by imposing some of the following conditions:

In the late 1990s, some friends and I were involved in founding some pubnixes, in a contested context. It meant we needed to put some thought into the actual theory of what pubnixes are and why they're good. The broad/narrow typology above cuts across that. I'll write more on it one day.

Some links

The SRCF

The Tildeverse history

cmccabe on the history and future of pubnixes

Grex governance

The Zen of Pubnix

Micro-pubnixes, local flavour and two-tier structure

On SDF, and the future of public access unix

The Circumlunar Universe (according to the Zaibatsu)

The Circumlunar Universe (according to the Soviet)

Pubnix History

Small Internet Manifesto

Pubnix as an Ecosystem

How we should grow

Manifestos R Us

Orphans of Netscape I

Orphans of Netscape II

Generations

Specific pubnix sites

Quux

SDF

Colorfield.Space

Rawtext.Club

The Mare Crisium Soviet Socialist Regency

Bitreich

dimension.sh

hcoop.net

My own pubnixes

Zeus (RIP)

SRCF

Qwghlm Association

In the future, circa 2025, I intend to found a new pubnix focused on smolnet / Heterodox Technology.

Unsorted links

Hacker News thread re SDF / pubnixes (1)

Hacker News thread re SDF / pubnixes (2)

cmccabe on Online communities

What were the major public access unix systems available in the 1990s

https://web.archive.org/web/20230930155115/https://crystallabs.io/member/

Five years a sundog - Happy birthday, circumlunar space!

Happy Birfday, Zaibatsu-kun! Or, Wages of the Smolnet

Pubnix governance

TBD

Coda

I tend to call them "Public Access UNIX" systems, or PAX. This is definitely what some people called them in the 1990s. The "pubnix" term was new to me when I came across it a few years ago, circa 2020.