Textpattern Support Forum

Destry wrote:

I wonder if this is going to effect Textpattern’s domains at all.

Our hosting package is affected by this EOL announcement. I will provide more details as soon as I gather those.

wet wrote:

Our hosting package is affected by this EOL announcement. I will provide more details as soon as I gather those.

Destry wrote:

Assuming Joyent says the project domains no longer get a free ride,

Hey guys why don’t you write to Jason first? I could do it if you want.

hopefully Jason will respond to this one

@wet

Agreed, I used to resell a bit on our webservers, now I don’t offer that. Too much pain for very little profit.

wet wrote:

You might consider the hosts listed on our Textpattern hosting page and in the left sidebar.

I guess you can take Joyent off that list, eh? I mean, isn’t that why were here? Anybody who’s losing their lifetime hosting from Joyent isn’t going to pay them anymore; not based on the sentiment I’m seeing in the rounds of discussion.

I don’t think we want to get into the hosting business (option “b”). Not even for friends and colleagues.

Can’t say I blame you. It was just an idea. You need contingency ideas at the moment. Here’s a running list, including the two I’ve mentioned already:

• Option A: Textpattern owns domains. Community covers registration and hosting costs. (Five domains, ouch.)
• Option B: Textpattern looks into a small reseller scenario. Ruled out.
• Option C: Try and make a new “partner” arrangement with a web host; they provide hosting like Joyent used to do, and Textpattern permanently gives them advertising. (As Editor for the magazine, this is the first thing I would pursue for that domain at least, but since you own the domain, it involves you on the administration side of things.)
• Option D: Still reliant on getting ownership of the scattered domains. The respective domains are given to the current leads of the sites to responsibly manage and fund—perhaps even under a contract of faith—who would freely transfer the domains to the next leaders, etc, when the time comes. This at least leverages the expenses if community donations aren’t made to one person. So, currently it’s:
  • .com – Robert
  • .net – Destry (or Ruud?)
  • .org – Stef
  • txpmag – Destry
  • txg – Stuart
• Option E: Go for what Phil was implying in a different thread; actually create physical subdomains under .com for plugins, themes, and docs and put content there. That would reduce cost of five domains to two, and I’d still be willing to fund the magazine as long as I’m Editor (i.e., owning the domain). If Dean keeps up with registration costs on .com, then wet only funds the hosting. But again, the dark side to this option is that the other domains are then left in the ether for someone to use in potentially damaging ways.
• Option F: Similar to E, drop unnecessary domains by adopting (supposedly free) web-based tools to replace them. Though at the moment I an only think of a web-based wiki for docs, and that doesn’t seem worth the effort by itself.

You can see, perhaps, various combinations and alterations of these options. For example, go with option E, but still encourage option A. Or go with option D but still pursue option C. Etc.

Colak: Like Reid said in the J-forum, I’m sure Hoffman thought long and hard about the repercussions his announcement would make before he made it. Maybe he overlooked the Textpattern sites and something might be worked out there, but I’d recommend Textpattern keeps looking for a plan B just in case.