The Tardis Charter (version 4.0)

What is Tardis?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tardis is a network of multi-user computers linked to the internet as
a subnet of the Department of Computer Science at Edinburgh
University.  It is connected to the internet through a
packet-filtering router and firewall, which allows most services in
to and out from the network.  Some applications are barred by the
firewall, the most notable one being telnet.  Tardis is not somewhere
from which access to other computer systems is allowed.

What does Tardis do?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tardis provides a number of services to its users, including
electronic mail, news, WWW and FTP space, and mailing lists.  These
services are provided to students and staff, both current and past, of
the University of Edinburgh.  In addition to this, the Tardis Project
allows people to learn about system administration of a network of
UNIX machines and other areas such as computer programming and
networked enviroments.  Projects undertaken on the Tardis machines
have personal copyright.

In addition to this, Tardis acts as a base for a number of studies
currently going on in various areas of computing.  As examples, one of
the Tardis machines is being used for sociological studies of virtual
communities, and there is on-going research into the tools and methods
which can be used in distributed administration and management of
computer networks.

Finally, Tardis can provide an area where people who are restricted in
their normal computing envrionment can either learn or provide a
service which they could not do elsewhere.  An example of this would
be a user wishing to run CGI scripts when their own computing
environment would not allow them to run due to possible security
risks.

Who looks after Tardis?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tardis has a two-tier system of operation, and is looked after by two
sets of people: timelords, and assistants.  The timelords act as
managers of the Project, whereas the assistants look after the
day-to-day running of the system.

People who join Tardis and have (or wish to gain) experience in the
areas of management and/or administration of computer networks are
welcome to help out on the system.  In essence Tardis is a
co-operative anarchy, with jobs normally being done by those who have
the best knowledge to fix the problem or just whoever's around at the
time.  This normally results in a large number of people managing the
system between them, with perhaps only one or two people actually
on-site with the machines at any one time.

The Tardis Spirit
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The main area of the Tardis spirit is that of personal responsibility.
Tardis is a system which is not regulated strongly by those who
administrate it, rather they prefer to let the users themselves look
after the system by acting responsibly and not putting the Project at
risk.  If you do something which you know to be against certain rules
in existance, or you think that it might be, then you are endangering
not only your own account on Tardis but the future of the entire
Project itself.  *Please* read and make sure that you understand all
of the regulations that come with the application form, and if you
have any queries on them then feel free to contact one of the
timelords with your questions.

Another part of the Tardis spirit is helping out, and improving the
system for all of the users.  If you see something on Tardis which you
think could be improved or updated, then please let us know.  Of
course, if you do this you should be ready for a reply along the lines
of 'good point - go and do it.'  That is the way that Tardis has
generally worked in the past, and it has worked quite well.  Tardis
could not have become the service which it currently is without the
large amount of people who have worked on it in the past and there is
a lot of software that needs looking after, with a continuous need for
people who are interested in helping out.  Along the same lines, if
you have heard of or think up a new service which Tardis could be a
host to, then approach one of the timelords, who will pass your
suggestions on for discussion.