[Finance] Fw: What do weo4weo?

[David Kaufman]

Forward of (previously mis-addressed) message to Steering and Finance:

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Kaufman" <david at gigawatt.comTo: "Evolt Steering List" <steering at lists.evolt.org    "Evolt Finance List" <finance at lists.volt.orgSent: Thursday, November 04, 2004 2:22 AM
Subject: What do weo4weo?

I have been speaking to Jeff off-list about the WEO hosting situation,
and would like to propose a formalized arrangement for compensating him
for his past and continuing hosting of the weo server.

Jeff has been hosting weo now since February of 2003.  He acknowledged
that the service was originally offered in good faith, and provided at
cost to evolt, simply as his own ongoing donation.  While he currently
expects to have to continue to provide hosting weo at his own expense
and indefinitely, he's become less happy about "donating" the full cost
of hosting it for the foreseeable forever.

Since the arrangement has become longer-term than either he nor we would
have originally expected, and since we are now able to afford to bear
more of our own hosting costs, I think it's only fair that we pay our
own way.  Jeff estimates the market rate for a similar service from a
commercial provider to be around $100 per month.  At that rate, we've
enjoyed over $2000 worth of service, which is more than our current net
worth, and so would be beyond our ability to repay.

Of course, Jeff is not looking to profit from providing service to evolt
(if he had been, then he's an even worse businessman than I... :-) ),
and has indicated that he would find evolt carrying just half of the
load, or $50 per month, "just dandy".

Lastly since we have always assumed, and Jeff admits, that for much of
that time he was, in spirit and in deed, donating this server service in
whole, it was agreed that evolt should not have to, and need not
(especially since we cannot) repay hosting fees retroactively back to
February of 2003.  Jeff's position is that he assumed that his
open-ended donation commitment was to be temporary, until such a time as
evolt became financially able to support it's own bandwidth habit.

This to me seems fair, and we both could agree that the point of self
sufficiency must have come to pass the day we started renting the
ServerMatrix box, back in June.

So can I get a +1 (or six?) to ratify this treaty, stop this bloodshed,
bring the boys & girls home, and agree to reimburse Mr. Howden for the
last 5 months of back hosting (at 50% street value) and to buy back his
heart and mind... or at least rent them for $50 per month, until such a
time as we can get off our collective asses and get our ass off of Cold
Fusion?

Thanks for your attention to this long post -- I watched "West Wing"
this evening and felt like peace-making.

-dave