One of ABI’s (Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology) focus areas is providing various forms of community for technical women. Systers™ was the first such community, started by Anita Borg, long before the institute came into existence. Systers has grown to be an electronic community of over 3000 women from over 50 countries, and has spun off a number of smaller groups (Entrepreneurs, LGBT, Latinas in Computing, and a group of
CRA-W co-sponsored email communities, such as PhdjobhuntHers, JrProfessHers, ResearcHers, and ProfessHers). The technical infrastructure that supports these groups was based on specialized software, built on the open source Mailman system and hardware that was at least 6 years old.
Last month, we successfully migrated the server by upgrading both hardware and software. The transition was quite transparent and seamless for our users. In addition, we improved on source control techniques. The server is now located on a more robust environment. We have the latest software versions which facilitated in solving some longstanding bugs. All other known bugs have also been addressed and fixed. A bug tracking tool has been implemented with statuses, assignments, and updates that are easily accessible by administrators who support this program in an ongoing basis. We have in place, good procedures and processes for testing and are fully documented.
Systers customizations to the Mailman code (originally developed by Ellen Spertus) which include the ability to add alternate email addresses, and discussion threading have been updated and are now compatible with the latest version of GNU Mailman. The Systers customizations to the source code are now available on http://launchpad.com/systers. The application and OS updates (Systers is now running on Ubuntu 8.04 LTS) allow a cleaner upgrade path to leverage new GNU Mailman features and maintain a stable, secure system for many years to come.
Development processes are now in place to allow Systers and other volunteers who would like to contribute to additional feature development and participate in bug-fixes.
ABI would like to thank the following individuals who unselfishly volunteered their time and expertise in this migration effort – Jennifer Redman (CEO of Buunabet, LLC), Andy Grover (Principal SW Engineer at Oracle), Robin Jeffries (Quantitative Analyst at Google and Her Systers’ Keeper), and Annie Bedichek (ABI Contractor).
To learn more about Systers, please visit our website.