hey all! I’m working on a project to help communities for open-source and self-hosted tools like Yacy quickly get started, without having to dive too deep into configuration details. the goal would be to make it easier to get properly configured sandbox environments up and running when prototyping new use cases/deployments.
i’m curious if this would be a useful project for the community?
Sure, for me!
It would certainly be useful to not have to spend time configuring yacy.
For linux, you might want to create a flatpak file, so that it works everywhere.
My first project with YaCy from 2016 to 2013.
When someone heard or read the name of my little special project for the first time, the reaction was usually a raised eyebrow and, in the subtext, the question: “Has he completely lost his mind now?”
My official answer was always a charming “Yes and no.”
No, because I certainly never intended to compete directly with the almighty heavyweights of the search engine market – that would have been about as smart as challenging an aircraft carrier with a rowboat.
And yes, because it was simply an outrageously great pleasure to have realized such a project and to keep it running for years.
The real punchline is this: I simply proved that you can run a self-built search engine on an ordinary VR server for a full seven years without a single rooster in the digital henhouse crowing about it.
For seven years, my search engine faithfully scanned 25 selected websites in the field of cancer at exactly 6 o’clock every morning. Every single day.
Result: About 0.21 million robots per day plowing through the German World Wide Web, collected into a modest 800 gigabytes of fine SEO data.
Now you might ask: “So? Didn’t anyone ever notice?” Answer: Nope.
My IP address remained an inconspicuous digital gentleman – not a single block, not a single spot on any blacklist for search engine robots.
If I didn’t know better, I’d almost say my machine was secretly having coffee parties with the web servers of the nation.
But beyond all this technical playfulness, there is also a very personal story behind it.
After the life-changing experiences with my brain hemorrhages in 2004 and the heart and lung problems in 2010, I was, to be honest, simply grateful to wake up alive every morning.
But with the start of this search engine, I suddenly had another ritual: Alongside my morning thanks to the universe, I also got to watch, as a silent SEO spy, the big cancer websites perform their “opinion and ranking ballet.”
For seven years I received for free what others had to pay dearly for: the little secrets of the really big players.
And yes, every single day I sent out a sincere but mischievously smiling “thank you” upwards.
In the end, the realization remains: The “cancer search engine” may never have competed with Google – but it showed me things for which no algorithm and no artificial intelligence is needed: patience, curiosity, and a certain joy in stretching the rules of the game without completely breaking them.
With slightly cheeky regards and a wink,
Patrick
Patience is a virtue.
I assume you meant your project lasted until the year 2023. What now? Did you quit… or move on to a new project with Yacy?
Each day is a blessing for us to wake up and have another day on this side of eternity to perform good deeds, for which the God of the universe promises to repay. To do good and to communicate: with these sacrifices God is well pleased. Yacy offers the opportunity for us to find others not given mainstream attention and communicate truth with them, doing good toward them, even praying for them. Since you publicly declare that you pray daily, I send up a prayer on your behalf as well, to the God who is not a dumb force, but an all-knowing Spirit.