[Wolves] The Open Hosting project

[Andy Smith]

Hi Kris,

On Thu, Nov 08, 2007 at 07:28:32PM +0000, Kris Douglas wrote:
> I was thinking about an open source web hosting project, where we run a
> donations/ low cost based web hosting service that can benefit the Linux
> community, where the money received goes to a Linux project or a charity, or
> something like that.

I've found that without locking things down to an insane degree,
removing desirable features (like dynamic content) and spending a
lot of human time (the most expensive resource) it can be very
difficult to keep free/cheap web hosting secure.

The basic idea of a colo collective is a good one because the
rackspace, power, bandwidth are all cheaper in bulk, plus there are
some common resources that the collective can supply more easily
than N individuals duplicating effort: terminal servers, the
switch(es) etc.

Somewhere between these are a number of Xen-based not-for-profit
hosting setups where all the members pitch in for the cost of a
decent server and the colo of it (or rent same), then run their own
virtual servers.

Here's probably the best known of these efforts:

http://www.xen-hosting.org/

If I were you I'd be running it as a non-profit organisation for the
benefit of its own members (a society or similar) before thinking
about charity status.

Cheers,
Andy

-- 
http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
Encrypted mail welcome - keyid 0x604DE5DB
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