[Hcoop-discuss] Help plan our next server set-up!

[leitgebj at hcoop.net]

Hi all,

First I would like to say hello to everyone, and congratulations for
starting such an important cooperative, both technically and socially. 
Technically, it seems that we are certainly going down the correct path to
achieve efficient and reliable hosting.  Socially, I am proud to be part
of a cooperative that stands in a position not only to offer democratic
hosting, but to help us move towards a more democratic society as a whole
by providing a relatively non-commoditized, shared, hosting space.

As society becomes more dependent on the internet as a medium of
communication, I believe that cooperatives such as hcoop.net will become
increasingly important to our society by providing space for diverse
voices  to exist on the internet, thereby participating in the democratic
process.  It is in this respect that I particularly look forward to my
membership in the hcoop.net organization.

Second, and related to this goal, please include me in the committee that
is developing the architecture of hcoop.net.  I am looking forward to
learning and, when possible, helping the cooperative to grow.

Thanks!


Sincerely,


Justin S. Leitgeb (new hcoop.net member)


> I'm sending this message to enlist your help in planning the dream geek
> hosting set-up for the next stage of HCoop's existence.  If you're
> interested in participating, please read through this message.  You'll
> find my precise call for help at the end.
>
> Yesterday we reached the auspiciously palindromic member count of 55.
> On February 1st, I'll split the remainder of the costs for our new
> server and tax exemption application among the members at that time.
> That will leave us with a cost a $3.82/member/month.
>
> I must say, "not bad!"  Our costs seem to beat pretty much anything out
> there.  The first web site I found when searching for a site to search
> out web hosting providers has "under $5" as its lowest category. :-)
> There are still some cheaper deals, but I'm sure none are as flexible
> and democratic as ours, and our price will continue to drop as
> membership increases.
>
> So, with that said, isn't this a great time to expand our services and
> increase the price? :-D
>
> A few months back, I created this wiki page to summarize why we need to
> expand and to organize plans on doing so:
>     http://wiki.hcoop.net/wiki/ColocationPlans
>
> That was shortly after we had completed migration of users to the new
> server, as well as other set-up tasks.  I think we are now stable enough
> that it makes sense to focus on new, larger scale plans.
>
> To summarize the wish list items that drive this change (in rough order
> of importance), we need or would like:
> - More reliability and redundancy via back-up mechanisms and multiple
> servers (this one implies, to me, that we need a shared filesystem like
> AFS provides)
> - Support for member purchase of arbitrary amounts of disk space
> - An adequately responsive and active human administration system
> - Separate "production," "development," and "shell" servers
> - Hardware goodies like serial console and hardware firewall
>
> I think we can begin planning our next set-up now and determine how much
> it will cost.  Based on that cost, we can determine if we are ready yet,
> or if we should seek more members first.
>
> I'd like to ask anyone who is interested in planning this to identify
> himself to this list and become part of a semi-official "committee."
> We're still experimenting with ways to get everyone involved in decision
> making over the Internet, and less formalized attempts to divide up work
> haven't always worked well in the past, so I thought I'd try this.
>
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