[Sysadmin] going through donations made me think of leo

[John Handelaar]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: sysadmin-bounces at lists.evolt.org
> [mailto:sysadmin-bounces at lists.evolt.org]On Behalf Of Warden, Matt
> Sent: 02 August 2003 19:16
> To: sysadmin at lists.evolt.org; Elfur Logadottir
> Subject: Re: [Sysadmin] going through donations made me think of leo
>
> >after doing that i realised that in the past few months we have gotten
> >enough donations to put leo on it's own '$100 pr. month' box for
> at least a
> >year.
> >
> >so i'm thinking, maybe we should seriously consider doing that.
>
> wait, why? is there a problem with where it is right now?
>
> I checked both theforumarchive and steeringarchive and didn't see anything
> that suggested there was a problem with its current home. I've been out of
> the loop (minus this list) for a long time, so I'm just asking for a "why"
> explanation.

Sure:

In order of importance (from my perspective, anyway) --

a)  Mailman performance sorta stinks these days sometimes
    since even the rather-spiffing Qmail occasionally gets
    very bogged-down now that we're running so much stuff
    on the same box.  Second box == relay cover.  Not that
    I'm especially *looking forward* to setting another one
    up after last time.  Cos that sucked. :-)

b)  "Mate" boxen have, in the last year or so, had a rather
    annoying habit of not being available anymore at rather
    short notice.  I'm *not* saying that about the current
    WEO, I hasten to add, but the cautious part of me isn't
    comfortable with us collectively having such a limited
    (currently 5) number of people, any one of whom may
    need to stop their contrib for whatever reason -- and
    any one of those 5 potential 'stops' kills a box. I'd
    rather spread that load as a safety measure if nothing
    else.

c)  Self-hosting is a Good Thing per se, and we *can*.

d)  [slightly OT] Asking for donations without a specific goal
    is usually futile anyway.

[Incidentally, I remain resolutely unhappy with the idea of
putting different cash values on donations than their actual
cash value.  Assuming we add .jeff's contribution to the
donor list, I want it either a) added to the cash contribs
list at its market value or b) added to the target for
fundraising so that he can be paid what he's worth.  The
old donor bar was just bullshit imho and lent an air of
'they have 10k and don't have enough money? screw those
idiots' to us.]

> Sure, we have money now (how much is actually from legitimate donations
> since we've put up the donation bar? a couple thousand?), but our problem
> has always been sustaining it.

Like you, I've never been confident of this before, but
I'm persuaded now that we can do this.  I can think of
2 people right now (David the tshirt guy and Sabrina Dent)
who want this to be their main contribution.  Both are
pretty damned good at it.  Plus I'm a believer in our
Icelandic friend, too.

Plus, it's possible that I've just posted this to the
wrong list...

But sure, keep digging if i'm not being persuasive
enough :-)

Cheers

------------------------------------------
John Handelaar

T +44 20 7609 2214       M +44 7930 681789
F +44 870 169 7657   E john at userfrenzy.com
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