pcplantdb

[John Schinnerer <john@eco-living.net>]

Aloha,

> So, our URL would be www.permaculture.info, our project name would be
> Permaculture Information Web, and our umbrella collaborative would be called
> Open Permaculture Project or Open Permaculture Information Project (I vote for
> the former, the latter is too verbose).
>
> Is this allright?

All right by me.  Also prefer Open Permaculture Project over OPIP

> Lawrence, Scott, and I all support the idea of buying a server for Ibiblio. 
> John is against spending money on a server, unless it doesn’t come out of
> wage money.  So John – if the money does not come out of our wages, and we
> still receive $15/hour or more, would you support this idea?

I don't support you spending your time raising money to buy a server to 
give to someone else.
And, if you choose to do so, you will do so.

> So I am wondering, do we absolutely need to use Bugzilla?  What
> is it for?

It is our issue/bug tracking system. I chose it because it is one of the 
more used and more mature such systems available in the open source realm.
Whether or not we can use it from a user directory install on ibiblio is 
still being researched.

> He also wrote, “One reason John H. went with johncompanies.com as his
> infrastructure provider is that he gets a full virtual machine - he is
> root/sysadmin and can do anything he wants with his system, so lots of issues
> that arise in being a shared user of a shared machine (Laughing Squid,
> ibiblio, etc.) and not having root privileges simply vanish.”  But I assume
> johncompanies is expensive?

For accounts hosting open source projects, $45 a month for the virtual 
machine setup John H. has (discounted from the standard rate of $75 a 
month because they're big supporters of open source).
That is the rate Chad used to make his estimate (which I corroborated) 
of $555/yr. for hosting and domain registration for HG - the estimate I 
used to point out the financial tradeoffs of hosting somewhere we can do 
whatever we want vs. buying someone else a server that they'll let us 
use part of on their terms.

> Should not having root privileges be a concern of
> ours?

That will depend on what we need to have control of to host this project 
in the best way possible.

We will not get a virtual machine to ourselves on existing ibiblio 
setups (using MySQL, PHP, etc.).  We get a user login to a home 
directory where we can do certain things but not others.  What we can 
and can't do I don't know, since afaik we don't even have an account 
there yet, and it would be John H. or Chad with their sysadmin 
experience who would best understand the particulars of our account 
privileges and restrictions.

Was getting an ibiblio account for the project on anyone's task list?

I doubt we will get a virtual machine to ourselves even if we buy them a 
server for zope, because of course it will be their server and they will 
let us use it but also lots of other people will use it.
How they will configure and administer it I don't know.
That is another piece of basic and essential host services information 
that we have not been provided with.
Y'all *really* want to give them a $6K server without any idea what 
services we'll get from it once it's theirs?!?

What I do know is that we are unlikely to have any more say in the 
matter than we would with an account on their existing systems.  We buy 
them a server and then they tell us how we will be allowed to use it. 
Seems foolish use of money to me.

> John S. wrote, “I would work on HG for $15/hr., though if I have other
> paying work at other "real world" rates it will get priority most of the
> time.”  Hey brother, we are all in the same boat.  I assume we all have
> full-time jobs with “real world” rates,

Nope, I'm extremely low-income self-unemployed lately, now that I've 
moved back to Hawai'i Island.  Anything can happen though...
Becoming what Toby Hemenway calls a "bottom feeder."  Good used pallets 
are like gold.  Speaking of which, gotta roust a centipede somewhere 
under the pallet my camp chair is on...don't want it in my slipper in 
the morning...or up my leg any minute now... :-O


--

John Schinnerer - MA, Whole Systems Design
------------------------------------------
- Eco-Living -
Whole Systems Design Services
People - Place - Learning - Integration
john@eco-living.net
http://eco-living.net