Red Bean Software is a collectively-owned Internet server, hosted in Chicago, Illinois, and administered by a group of friends and colleagues around the world. Most of us are involved, in various ways, in the Internet and in computer technology.
(No, Red Bean is not a real company — the front page is just a joke. Believe it or not, we do get applications sometimes, and once even an inquiry about purchasing the company. Three cheers for due diligence.)
Red Bean was started in the mid-1990's by a couple of friends who were tired of their email address changing every time they switched jobs or schools. Their solution was to create a special domain, "red-bean.com", to be their permanent home on the Internet. As time went on, some their friends liked the idea and joined in. The group is about 40 people large now, but remains strongly socially interconnected — there is probably no one at Red Bean who is more than one or two degrees away from anyone else here. See our people page for more about the group, including people's names; see the history and charter page for a more detailed history.
Over the years, the range of services at Red Bean has expanded. It started out hosting some personal email addresses and web pages. Now it hosts mailing lists, software repositories, standards documents (e.g. the SGF File Format) ... really, anything that requires a stable address and a continuously online server. See the stuff page for more.
We're happy to answer questions about Red Bean, especially from blacklist operators who need to confirm that we're responsible Internet citizens (we are, and we're happy to provide any assistance needed). Please feel free to contact us by sending email to: abuse-contact {_AT_} red-bean {_DOT_} com.
