[HCoop-Help] Commercial Site for Others / Non-member

[Nathan Kennedy]

I've said this before, but the co-op may be nonprofit, but it's not a
charity.  We should be agnostic to the content our members are hosting.  As
I mentioned before, the pledge system was supposedly intended to be a
temporary fix and completely voluntary.

We have many members who host websites for free for other organizations or
persons that they have various ties to.  The member acts as administrator
for the website and as far as HCoop is concerned we don't even have to know
that this other organization even exists.  It would seriously hamper
HCoop's utility if we did not allow this.

What possible difference does it make to HCoop whether a member is
receiving remuneration for this? It makes none, because this has nothing to
do with us, and any policy based on that would be unenforceable.

These members are not "reselling," they are offering their own value-added
service based on HCoop, and we've always allowed commercial users.  As long
as the third party isn't logging in and isn't talking to us, that should be
fine, it's not 'abusing' HCoop.

Any strain on HCoop resources is a completely different issue.  We have
commercial users with small static websites with very little footprint and
personal users with big dynamic websites with a big footprint accounting
for a larger proportion of our total load.

If and when this becomes a problem, the solution is usage-based fees based
on objective criteria like bandwidth, CPU, and storage, not discriminating
arbitrarily against commercial/noncommercial usage.

-ntk

On Thu, 16 Apr 2009 23:56:33 -0700, Rob Gubler <rgubler at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 8:49 AM, Davor Ocelic <docelic at hcoop.net> wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, 13 Apr 2009 19:55:19 +0100
>> Michal <michalcharemza at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > > If the answer to these questions are both yes, then there is no
> issue
>> with
>> > > you hosting these websites under your account, even if you are
> charging
>> the
>> > > customer for creating or hosting the website.
>> > Great!
>> >
>> > > You may but are in no way
>> > > obligated to pledge more.
>> > I will consider it. It wouldn't seem fair to me that the business (and
>> > so me, indirectly) would be making money from a non-profit
>> > organization, without giving any money to it.
>>
>> In the past, we used a fee approach where we start with a total monthly
>> expense and divide it by the number of members (and later pledges)
>> to get a  per-month/per-person fee. This was leading to fees that
>> were IIRC in the $2.41 to $7 range per month.
>>
>> Some time ago we have fixed the basic pledge at $5. It means that
>> after the colocation costs and the minimal costs of running a non-profit
>> are covered, new members or extra pledges put us in a position where we
>> can accumulate a "reserve" and use it for expanding our services
>> (through new hardware, colocation plans etc.).
>>
>> So, knowing the above, pledging more does help HCoop's prosperity, and
> may
>> as well make you feel you're getting just the right deal with HCoop,
>> without
>> hitting either end of the spectrum (paying too much, or
> unconsideratively
>> "abusing" HCoop's services).
>>
>> But, it is in no way mandatory to pledge more. Personally, I like to
> view
>> HCoop as an organization that is delighting its members base. So, as
> long
>> as you're paying the minimal $5 monthly fee to keep things running and
>> you're
>> not "reselling" the services, it is completely up to you to decide what
>> constitutes "fairness", how you want to use HCoop, and how much you want
> to
>> pledge for it, without judgement from any HCoop official or member
> 
> 
> I think its worth mentioning that a number of people are generously
> pledging
> above the minimum $5 per month.  Although I don't know the status today,
> it
> used to be said that without those additional pledges the minimum pledge
> would have to be raised.  I think it is completely reasonable to assume
> that
> there be an increase in membership dues for those members acting as a
> commercial entity providing services that piggy back on the core
> functionality of  HCoop.
> 
> -Rob