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  • From: Chad Knepp <pyg@galatea.org>
  • To: pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [pcplantdb] moving on
  • Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 15:54:36 -0500

Lawrence F. London, Jr. writes:
> Chad Knepp wrote:
>
> > Chad Knepp writes:
> > > I wrote on 8/25:
> > > > I propose that we use the Zope platform to implement
> > > > HG/permaculture.info starting on arashi.com. When we have a
> > > > product available for mainstream use we will either move to ibiblio
> > > > if Zope is available or purchase hosting services from a commercial
> > > > provider such as johncompanies. We will continue to seek out
> > > > funding to procure a server for ibiblio and/or encourage
> > > > establishment of a Zope platform at ibiblio and hopefully migrate
> > > > there before the end of the year.
> >
> > Hey Rich M. and Lawrence! If you say 'Yes, this is what I want' to
> > the above proposal we will have consensed on another decision. I am
>
> Emphatically NO to the above. There are too many loose ends and
> unknowns (hopefully none of the Don Rumsfeld unknown unknown's
> though), specifically there's no guarantee that the project will
> end up on ibiblio. I will not participate in this project if it is
> not hosted permanently on ibiblio. You're welcome to go around me
> and do what you want but if so I will not contribute in any way to
> permaculture.info.

...until it is hosted at ibiblio right?

Lawrence, I am concerned that for you having the project hosted at
ibiblio is more important than the success of the project itself. I
don't think that holding a value this strongly is really fair to the
group or the project. If you could trust that the group does hold the
interests of the project foremost and values the potential of being
hosted on ibiblio, is working toward that, but currently isn't
feasible; perhaps you could see it differently.

> > stretching an assumption that everyone else agrees to this. If you do
> > not agree to this and I am making an incorrect assumption[:3] (I love
> > geek jokes) please speak up.
> >
> > If I hear from Rich M. and Lawrence today I will start tomorrow.
>
> To make all this very simple I will put things out where they may
> be viewed properly. I have ofered to loan/maybe donate $2000 to
> $2500 to help buy the Zope server for ibiblio. IF Stephanie will
> release $2000-2500 from the project grant and a third party I am in
> dialog with will donate $2000-2500, we will be able to buy that
> machine now and ibiblio will make it available to us within two
> weeks. In that event you will be able to start from scratch there,
> where you will be hosted for the long haul. Cost of the machine is
> $6300-6500. If Stephanie agrees to do this she can immediately
> apply to several known good prospects for further funding which can
> be used to replace HG's part of the machine expense. In the
> meantime there will likely be adequate funds left to pay for
> programmer wages. If the third party can only donate less than
> $2000-2500 I may be able to make up the difference; if not at all
> then I will _consider_ covering the deficit if Stephanie will help
> do the same by covering half the machine cost. If HG will not
> contribute at all it would be up to me and the other person to buy
> the machine and I do not know if we can afford to do this; would
> have to see about that. I am willing to donate money now but not
> later.

I disagree with the assessment that there are adequate funds for
development. We have specifically stated that various features will
not be implemented in the current development cycle because of limited
funding. Many of us (myself included) have responded to getting less
funding by deciding to volunteer a lot of our time. I've personally
invested many many hours in the last month and the spirit of giving
with which I started has diminished some.

> My position: We somehow buy the machine for ibiblio now and start
> work there as soon as it goes online (2 weeks from the day they
> (UNC) receive the money). This makes good sense to me. I need a
> guarantee that permaculture.info will be permanently hosted on
> ibiblio. I do not support paying for commercial hosting ever. That
> probably means buying a machine and putting it at ibiblio now and
> raising more money for wages later (you may need more than $10K
> anyway). Any other scenario is unworkable for me and if that is
> followed I will work on my own projects instead and not contribute
> further to HG.
>
> I need an answer from Stephanie and/or the group, if consensus is
> preferred, regarding HG's role in funding a Zope machine now.

I'm disappointed that you are unwilling to move on this point
Lawrence, but it is more important to me to keep the group together
than to make the best [IMO] technical decision. I'm not actively
opposed to aggressively pursuing acquisition of a server for ibiblio,
but John S. and Rich A. pretty much speak my mind in terms of the
[lack of] economic sense it makes.

Let me counter my own proposal with another:

Start on ibiblio ASAP with the Eden engine/dataset and build a RDBMS
agnostic python cgi ala 3) from August 11 post subject: 'platform
revisited'.

My reasoning(s): I like programming, so it's not like I'll have less
fun. Although we will need to lower some of our feature expectations
it may be possible to forward port to Zope3 (much better architecture
than the current Zope 2.7.2) in the future if we get enough more
funding. I think I'm a pretty 'kick butt' programmer so even w/out
Zope we can have a good product. Zope created some neat mixin classes
like Interface that we can use outside of zope easily. I suspect it
will make its way into the standard python modules pretty soon.

--
Chad Knepp
python -c 'import base64;print base64.decodestring("cHlnQGdhbGF0ZWEub3Jn")'




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