[HCoop-Discuss] On organizing people to get work done

[Adam Chlipala]

Daniel Margolis wrote:
> We can also do ideology, as you hint at. If some users believe in the 
> idea and want to pay more, that's cool, too. It's not something I want 
> to have to count on.

It's more than just "ideology," since I think there is rational reason 
to expect fairer pricing and other policies from a democratic, 
non-profit organization than from a commercial company.

> If I wanted to get an idea of the current cost of hardware and 
> hardware maintenance, where would I start looking?

Almost all of our hardware acquisitions over the last few years have 
been donations, with no particular cost to the co-op.  I think we've 
spent around $1000 on all hardware purchased over the last few years.  
In my book, this is a negligible cost, as it's about the same as we pay 
for normal monthly costs.

The installation and maintenance (and emergency response, if you meant 
to lump that in) is another story.  All of it is done by volunteers, so 
it's hard to put a price tag on it.  Any big change to the hardware 
configuration has tended to eat up tens of volunteer hours or 
thereabouts, I believe.