pcplantdb

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>]

Chad Knepp wrote:

> Hi Lawrence,
>
> Thanks for being more specific about your concerns.  It's much easier
> for me to understand where you are coming from now.
>
> Lawrence F. London, Jr. writes:
>  > Chad Knepp wrote:
>  > 
>  > > Zope cons:
>  > > 
>  > >   o Not supported currently by our prefered ISP (ibiblio).  If we
>  > >     choose to not go with ibiblio we would loose support from
>  > >     Lawrence. 
>  > 
>  > The main reason I would opt to make my contributions elsewhere
>  > (with regrets) if HG isn't done on ibiblio is:
>  > 1) Cost, time and trouble if not on ibiblio
>
> This is also my biggest concern, not so much while we have some
> funding, but after we are *done* and move on to other things.  What's
> going to happen then.  The kind of server facilities we would need
> would probably cost $500/year which is doable while we have funding.
> When/if funding runs out we are going to have serious problems if we
> don't have some sort of 'sugar daddy' ISP.

I'd suggest planning on making ibiblio permaculture.info's (almost called it 
HG again :-)
permanent home. If the programmers decide on using Zope and start work on 
John's server,
to continue development there for an indefinite period of time, then keep 
your options open
in case you need to switch to different software when the move to ibiblio 
needs to happen.
permaculture.info will likely get LOTS of hits as it grows, maybe millions 
each month; so we need to plan for that.
Not doing this on ibiblio will cost us a lot of money. For its heavy traffic, 
ibiblio relies on
special "industrial" rack-mounted servers costing as much as $10000 each and 
I don't think this figure includes hard drives.

I'm not in a position to dictate what platform you should use but suffice to 
say that I side with Rich
for using MySQL or something similar along the lines that Chad and John H 
have talked about (Eden, some variant of Zope,
writing portable Zope code in case MySQL needs to be called upon, etc.)

I see this as a major project, world-class, unique and widely used globally,
depended on. I envision having enough funding from grants and donations to 
make this happen on the scale
that we have talked about for so long. Somehow I have gotten the notion that 
we are on an upward path
with regards to funding. This is Stephanie's department and she seems to have 
plans in place
with a growing list of possible grantors, possibly.

> This raises another point.  When this project is over what will happen
> in regards to continued maintenance of the site regardless of where it
> is at?  If we have developed a substantial user-base this could be a
> non-trivial amount of work.  I do think it is possible for it to come
> from voluntary sources and think I would probably continue development
> on a small scale *for fun* anyway.  My question here is, has anyone
> really thought several years down the road about this?  Maintaining
> continuity is a very important thing on the Internet.  If
> permaculture.info is going to really be something, we need to think
> long term.

We should squirrel away grant dollars to pay professionals to do this work.
If none of use are available then it might be possible to contarct with 
ibiblio to have that done -
they often hire and train UNC student "apprentices" to do work of this sort.

> My solution is this:  We fund raise in collaboration with ibiblio to
> get a Zope server for the project.  By this I mean we either co-write
> the grant with them or at least include them extensively in the

I don;t think we would be able to collaborate with ibiblio for grants - they 
get theirs and we get
ours, then we give them a grant or direct payment for contract services or a 
one time donation.

> process.  They have a far reaching reputation and will probably lend
> credence to our own efforts, increasing our chance of success... one
> of those win-win things.

Forget that. We will have to get our own grants independently of ibiblio. I 
feel certain about this.

>  > 2) Its a blind alley as I see it; I can't invest a lot of trust in
>  > where the project might go/end up if we don't host on ibiblio - I
>  > fear intrusion into HG by some used car salesman who might get
>  > enough control to haul it off to parts unknown to do with it what
>  > he/they will.  For my money it is safe and sound on ibiblio and
>  > with NP support from the Permaculture Institute, for the long
>  > haul. This frees us to work on platform and data acquisition -
>  > which is what we are the most interested in anyway.
>
> I hear that you are concerned that our work could be misappropriated
> by others, but being at ibiblio does not really ensure that this won't
> happen.  We are creating an open source product and people can
> essentially take our product at any time and recreate the exact same
> thing on their own website.  There are a number of things they can't
> do with it though like charge money for it or sell it.  They also have
> to attribute authorship to us and any changes they make have to be
> released to the public in the exact same way.  Yes people can take our
> project and make it better than what we did.  If they do and people
> like it better, it is a GOOD thing.  This kind of thing isn't really
> something you can be safe from anywhere.

I already know about that and its not what I was referring to - see below.

> The other thing I hear in your concern is that some entity will be
> able to seize control of the direction of the project in an
> inappropriate way.  This is/was also a concern of mine and is why I
> didn't want for an individual in the group to own the domain name.

That's it exactly. This is why I support PI owning our domain and is our 
nonprofit
and that ibiblio hosts permaculture.info. I am not really interested in being 
part
of this project unless these conditions are met.

> Once the project becomes established the person/group in control of
> the domain essentially controls the project.  Although we are all

Very true. I trust PI explicitly.

> great folks we also have fairly different opinions on a number of
> things.  If we came to a decision that we didn't seem to be able to
> resolve, the owner of the name would have the option to fork the

We will just have to make up our minds to resolve all decisions, regardless;
each of us needs to be prepared to abide by a majority, to bend somewhat,
to keep the project on track no matter what.

> project and continue development by themselves.  Having this power
> would probably unbalance the decision making process even for easy
> decisions.

I think we have more in common than not regarding our hopes for our project.
We are about permaculture and getting this technology out to the public.
We will all likely learn a whale of a lot in the process.

> Anyway, like I said after establishment the folks at
> Permaculture Institute are really the only ones with this sort of
> power and we are pretty sure this isn't what they are about.

It is fortunate that we have PI to rely on for this. Then again they will
benefit greatly by the work we do.

>  > I'd like to think that I would have significant contributions to
>  > make to HG over time; that means text data, photos, videos and
>  > sound files; all original stuff from me. I'd much rather be part of
>  > a permaculture _database_ project than just create a permaculture
>  > wiki and website.
>
> This is one of the reasons why it's so important for you to remain a
> part of the HG project.  You MUST be part of HG!

I want to be. It is much more worthwhile to create a permaculture database 
than any
other information storage and retreival system and I would like to be part of 
that.

>  > I hope you all can find a way to work on ibiblio.
>
> Totally.  Would you consider going the Zope route if I say by the end
> of the year we will either be hosted at ibiblio, we will know the date
> by which we will be hosted on ibiblio, or we will have found a long
> term hosting solution that even you agree is as good or better than
> ibiblio (this one's not likely I admit)?  If by the end of the year we
> haven't satisfied these conditions you would have every right to
> curse, throw things, and walk out, etc.

Yes, but what I am willing to do is continue development of my Permaculture 
Knowledgebase
and store my colection of info and graphics there. I can select material
from this location for submission to pcinfodb. I am only willing to sideline 
my PK
when we are hosted on ibiblio. I still am with Rich for using MySQL
but the platform decision is up to you four.

LL
--
L.F.London
lfl@intrex.net
http://market-farming.com
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech