[thelist] san francisco community colocation project

ryan ryan at linefeed.org
Thu Feb 15 21:11:02 CST 2007


hi everyone --

i posted this info to the website but i don't know what happened to
it, i can't find it on there anywhere.

anyway, i wanted to write to the list to give some information about a
non-profit community network that is expanding in the san francisco
bay area. if you do work with non-profit organizations or an open
source project, you might be interested in this.

for about 5 years, the california community colocation project
provided low-cost server colocation for non-profits. towards the end
of 2006, some of the original people involved decided they couldn't
keep working on the project and cccp was scheduled to close down.
                                                           
well, those of us whose entire organizations relied on having
something like cccp joined forces and started sfccp, an org very
similar to cccp but based in downtown san francisco. 

and we're off to a really good start! we have a really nice
colocation facility in downtown San Francisco at 6th & Brennan,
tons of room to expand there, we've got a good partnership with
another community ISP who are selling us at-cost servers, etc.
                                                        
our two main visions are:
1- provide collectively-managed, collectively-purchased bandwidth and
colocation space for non-profit organizations, open source projects
and hobbyists,
             
2- value the protection of online free speech by being our own ISP. we
are all potential victims of corporate ISP's who could comply with law
enforcement or multinational corporations' legal teams to interfere
with our servers. this happened while indymedia was hosted at cccp --
diebold tried to get embarrassing documents about their e-voting
machines taken offline. with the help of the EFF, we fought them and
won. had we been hosted at a corporate ISP, that might not have been
possible. More details about that case are here:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/27/050218
                                                                 
so, how is this relevant for people on this list?
                                                
1- if you provide technology services to non-profits, maybe you need
to put servers in a colo or you need servers hosted for your own
projects. our prices are the most affordable you'll find, i think, and
they start at around $45/1U/month. no setup fee. and you'll be
participating in a community endeavour which will end up strengthening
all of us.
         
2- we are seeking financial and equipment donations right now to help
us get started. a number of groups have already responded generously
but we need more stability of resources. maybe you can help or could
refer us to someone who helps groups like ours.    
                                                  
3- we are looking for people in san francisco who could help organize
things in person -- specifically, we need sysadmins, website or print
designers and a fundraising/administrative guru.
                                               
ok, that's my introduction to SFCCP. our website is at:
http://www.sfccp.net/                            
                                                
if you have any questions, you can email me (ryan at sfccp.net) or
email the group (inquire at sfccp.net).                                        

thanks for your time,
ryan





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