Hosting conversations

Hi,

As has been pointed out by a couple of folk, iTWire published a further
opinion piece by David Williams about the hosting arrangements for Linux
Australia on Friday of last week. [0]

While one might quibble over some of what was said, at its core fair
points are made and for that matter, points that we've actually
discussed in Council recently albeit not flagged well enough to the
Membership.

As an aside, personally, despite the odd bit of friction between LA and
iTWire in the past I reckon iTWire do a nice job of promoting FOSS to
their readership and did so for quite some time before Linux/FOSS became 
business as usual for the industry and/or fashionable!

And to break the fourth wall for a moment - yes David, I consciously
meant to include civility to tech journos and the organisations they
work for in my list of "...an organisation, a team or an individual..."
in my earlier email [1] :)  But I digress!

So yes, actually, paying for hosting in virtual environments or
co-location or some combination of both is something that is being
actively discussed.

As an organisation we are fortunate to have good cash reserves and
prospects of continuing to do so, hence the imposition of a monthly bill
for such facility/capability isn't out of the question.  We need to be
careful with longer term commitments to substantial monthly outlays but
we also have long term data that allows sensible contemplation of future
financial positions.

We discussed the use of commercial hosting etc. at the Council's Face to
Face session in Melbourne in May and the consensus was that we should
dig into this further. [2]

I was fortunate enough to be able to catch up with our Admin team lead
mid last week and have asked that we progress this as a matter of
priority.  Unsurprisingly this was already on their radar and is being
actively considered, their Jedi powers clearly strong :)

I remain confident that we can strike the right balance between owning
our own kit, hosting it appropriately and making use of commercial VPS
style arrangements.

I am also confident that these decisions can be actioned in a timely
manner before we hit further problems of the kind already experienced.

Finally, I'm grateful for the efforts of all our Volunteers, Members and
other advocates for Linux and FOSS wherever/however it may be that they
contribute to the commons :)

Kind Regards,
Hugh
President, Linux Australia



[0]
http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analysis/the-linux-distillery/73280-itwire-shows-linux-australia-the-right-way-to-host-a-server.html

[1]
http://lists.linux.org.au/pipermail/linux-aus/2016-June/022744.html

[2]
In the interests of transparency I note that some members of Council
work for companies that provide such facilities on a commercial basis.
This probably disposes some of us, myself included, more towards the use
of commercial hosting facilities than less.  As such when final
deliberations are held on this we'll draw on the range of backgrounds of 
Council and Admin team members and select a group such that we don't 
inadvertently weigh things one way or the other.