pcplantdb

[Stephanie Gerson <sgerson@stanfordalumni.org>]

well hello there folks,

estamos peleando como una familia verdadera ;)

First, I wanted to clarify Lawrence’s intentions for John H. (at least, as I
understand them).  He ain’t trying to be sourpuss or nothin' – he just
trusts Ibiblio, has been working with them for a while, and recognizes how
much time and energy they can save us.  I also understand that he genuinely
wants to be a part of this project, but has serious concerns about the
direction it goes in.  And although emails may be misinterpreted (a la
difficulty with e-communication Chad referred to a while ago), I assume that
this is where we’re all coming from – we simply want the best for our dear
HG.  

Allrighty then, getting down to business:

-IBIBLIO/ZOPE – oy ve.  I have added John H.’s comments to the tally on
this topic:

-Rich – prefers Ibiblio (and whatever platforms they offer) over ZOPE
-Lawrence – Ibiblio and MySQL, Eden., etc. (option 4 of Chad’s list)
-Steph – would like to work with Ibiblio, but I’m leaving this one up to
yalls… 
-John S. – prefers ZOPE but willing to compromise
-Chad – 1 to 4 (from his list) in order of preference; ideally ZOPE on
Ibiblio – still interested in finding a way to make this work
-John H. – “would prefer zope if the long term software design is better
suited for object databases” but the “development platform is up to the
software architects.  I also see a combination of both, if there is a defined
API using XML/RPC-Soap as glue between the two”

Judging by this tally, 2 people prefer Ibiblio, 3 people prefer ZOPE but are
willing to compromise, and 1 would like to work with Ibiblio, but is open to
other scenarios.  So…what does this mean?  Voting brings up the topic of
decision-making – are we a majority-rule democracy?  Or consensus?  Or a
dictatorship (hee hee just kidding).  Understanding people’s opinions on
this, how do we proceed?  Chad, you live in a community which probably
practices cooperative decision-making quite often – got any suggestions?  

Other things to consider in this discussion: if we choose to go with John
H.’s server for the interim and wait for Ibiblio to host ZOPE, John H.
mentioned that he “anticipated at least a six month window before ibiblio
could deploy Zope effectively.”  He also wrote that he “definitely can
*not* host all intended content on the scale as infered in previous posts,
especially streaming media.”  Considering, is going with John H.’s server
realistic?  Will Ibiblio really be hosting ZOPE in six months?  (I know
Lawrence doesn’t think so.)  Because if not, and John H. cannot host the
project beyond six months, then we should probably go with Ibiblio.

Also, before dismissing Chad’s idea about collaborating with Ibiblio on
grant-seeking, why not ask them?  Couldn’t hurt, eh?  If our ideal is to
work *with*ZOPE*on*Ibiblio*, let’s at least try to go for it!  And if it
doesn’t work out, then do what’s realistic (which, from the comments
above, might be Ibiblio).

Related, Lawrence was wondering if we’ve asked Ibiblio “if they would be
interested in our giving them the money they would need to buy, install and
maintain their own dedicated Zope server.”  Have we asked them?  Chad, since
you have been the liaison, would you like to propose this and the
collaborative grant-seeking idea to them?  Lawrence, are you opposed to this?

And finally, I wanted to apologize to Chad and Rich for all the time you’ve
spent learning ZOPE if we don’t end up using it.  Hopefully you can still
use what you learned somehow?  (Then again, there’s no such thing as
learning in vain…)

And Rich, I have no idea what you did with your hello-world thing, but looks
perty nifty. 

-NAME – permaculture.info it is.  Without the dot when said.

-DOMAIN OWNERSHIP/NP STATUS – PI it is, and no NP for now.

-POST TO PC LISTS – That’s fine, I’ll wait on this.  And Rich or anyone
– got any ideas for examples of the kind of information we’re interested
in receiving, related to guilds, plant relationships, and/or plant
communities?  

-MISCELLANEOUS - 
-Chad brought up a real good question, “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.”  Completely
agreed.  And wouldn’t it be super cool if we were still collaborating with
each other in 20 years…or more?  Aside from that aspect of it, Lawrence said
that Ibiblio could be depended upon for the long term – another reason to go
with them.  But this is definitely something we should be thinking about, any
comments?  I, for one, am ready to dedicate myself to this indefinitely,
meaning I'd continue help manage the project and seek funding.  And I'd help
someone replace me if need be.  But I’m not the one who’d be doing the
tech maintenance, so hmmm…

-Thanks for the information on the Noble Foundation, Lawrence.  If anyone has
ideas for other funding sources, please let me know.

beleza.  Wishing you all wonderful weekends…

paz
*Stephanie



 







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Stephanie Gerson
sgerson@stanfordalumni.org
(c) 415.871.5683


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