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Re: Community hosting
Bloke wrote #297439:
Not that I was intending to use the Textpattern name at all.
I personally believe this does not make that a big difference as long as the first marketing vector would be to sell to regular Textpattern users and their paying clients. Under the assumption that a newly founded hosting entity is not perfect from the start its inevitable flaws would permeate to the Textpattern user experience.
figured that with more, albeit volunteer, people who do a remarkable job in the upkeep of the forum and our existing infrastructure
This might even be true if you put enough well-meaning actors into it, yet I think there’s a significant difference in user expectations for these two offerings: A community forum is not expected to be available 24/7 with reasonable response times. We usually hold hosting entities to a higher standard.
reliable third party hosting it might stand a fighting chance
I think that nowadays hosting entities must either be hugely popular with a mass appeal, cater to a niche audience, or have a significant technological edge to even survive, while an average 1990ies-style shared-hosting provider is only potential prey to a multi-branded conglomerate with so-so reputation.
Let’s drop the idea.
Why would you? Obviously there were at least three people who thought this was a good idea, one volunteer in the first few minutes the idea went public, and just two grumpy old naysayers. Looks like a positive balance to me.
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Re: Community hosting
I still think this is an idea worth pursuing. I could eventually bring a couple of sites onto the host as my design company currently does the same principle with a dedicated server running Plesk, that we resell to a handful of clients right now. It’s something we have gradually scaled back as we focus on packaging design and point of sale design more than web design these days.
I would recommend newer cloud hosting services over that setup we have as there are less support overheads.
If any problems arise, they tend to be email problems. So be aware of that.
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Re: Community hosting
Bloke wrote #297418:
tsohost were the frontrunner we were considering.
If the plan is to have 100 customers on a 30GBP reseller account, then each customer gets:
1GB webspace, 10GB bandwidth, 1% of CPU time.
For the same price you can get a lot more if you buy at “tso” directly:https://www.tsohost.com/web-hosting/cpanel-hosting: 10GB webspace, 150GB webspace…. (phone support, 24h email support) even if you lower the price to 3GBP, they offer more. If the goal is to provide reliable hosting, there are already a lot of options out there.
we’d need a few nitty-gritty admins who from time-to-time can do upgrades, rollouts, restores, etc, and know their way around the Linux command line.
If you don’t know how to do this yourselves, is it wise to rely on volunteers who can quit or simply stop responding at any time?
We have a generous chunk of cash raised by the community last year so this could be used to kick things off, funding something from which we can all benefit.
I thought that was a fundraiser to support Textpattern, not to fund a project that is only loosely related to Textpattern.
Some agreed percentage could be siphoned off to fund ongoing Textpattern development.
My guess is that the people who would opt to join in on this webhosting project are the same people who typically donate generously to Textpattern in the (bi-)annual fund raisers. There’s a chance that they see this webhosting plan as an alternative to donating directly, since you can only spend money once. It might result in a net reduction of funds for TXP.
Having said that, +1 on what Robert says (especially the part about grumpy old men).
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Re: Community hosting
Ok, what about Textpattern Docker containers with a cloud server? Any legs on that?
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Re: Community hosting
ruud wrote #297446:
I thought that was a fundraiser to support Textpattern, not to fund a project that is only loosely related to Textpattern.
Yes, that is the only peculiar part to me.
Not to put undo attention on what is probably a none-issue, but while I can understand there are Textpattern project funds sitting there with no clear idea for directing them, it doesn’t seem right they would go to a side hosting effort.
Unless the idea is that funds are divided among devs as even split payout, and Phil and Steph use their shares to reinvest into their hosting project. But I guess that just depends on what the conditions of the original funding was for — for the project, or for the dev’s own pocket. I don’t recall. While Textpattern’s own immediate effort would lose out on that, it could be argued that it’s an individual’s right to do with their share as they please.
I can’t help feel it would be better to fund the hosting effort independently, from those who would be interested in that direction, and figure out other places in the Textpattern project for the original Txp project donations.
Aside from that, it’s a noble idea. Speaking as a moderator addressed, my own hosting needs for CSF and it’s upcoming projects have since been met with WebFaction’s benefaction, and I hope not to have to make yet another migration anytime soon. I can only wish you all the best for success.
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Re: Community hosting
As one who has and will donate to TXP fundraisers, I’m quite happy if Stef and Phil take their shares and enjoy dark beers. If they choose a hosting mission as new hobby, so be it. Dark beers seem more attractive to me, but I am sincerely happy that they do as they wish. I appreciate the work and creativity our Devs provide.
If this is perceived as an interesting hobby – all is good. If it is to be a serious TXP endeavour, I’m really not enthused. What need does this fill? There is no shortage of great and low cost hosting companies out there. Ones who provide the service as a real business.
I am concerned this could be a distraction from the core mission of making a great CMS. Given Textpattern’s history of being associated (fairly or not) with somewhat dodgy hosting companies, it adds further caution.
The world does not need Textdrive / Kaizen Garden take three (or four – I’ve lost count).
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Re: Community hosting
Fret ye not. Consider this topic dropped. Seems it’s all covered elsewhere. As you were…
The smd plugin menagerie — for when you need one more gribble of power from Textpattern. Bleeding-edge code available on GitHub.
Txp Builders – finely-crafted code, design and Txp
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Re: Community hosting
lol – get your helmet bloke :)
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#21 2016-01-20 15:31:53
- jpdupont
- Member
- Registered: 2004-10-01
- Posts: 752
Re: Community hosting
+1 with Wet and Ruud.
+ 100 with “I’am concerned this could be a distraction from the core mission of making a great CMS.”
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