Sponsored server?

[Viktor]

A small server costs in France or Germany around 20 euros per month in a reasonable offer. (You also find offers with "unlimited storage" but I wouldn't count on that for a project of our size ) Such a server would hold most of our infrastructure and give us some space for growth and some nice extras (like our own BitTorrent tracker). It could also serve as an uploader, at least for part of it (depending on the harddisk size). 20 euros/month is ridiculous compared what you needed to pay eight years ago, but still a bit much for a volunteer person.

Such a server would be not absolutely necessary now, but rather a convenience for future growth. This forum is currently hosted at Tuxfamily (a French free hoster for Free projects), which is very appropriate. Database, catalogue and some small scripts will also fit on there, just no uploader.

I think we agree that we don't want neither to display any ads nor a nagging "Please donate!!" button. But when a (hosting) company would pay us a server, we could show a little "hosted by..." button at the side or at the bottom of catalogue and forum, couldn't we? See for example the "hosted by ibiblio" button on http://new.linuxfocus.org

If you are fine with that, I'd first ask some companies I know personally, then we could ask some large hosters (Strato, 1&1, OVH, Free...) with a letter that I'd first post here for approval.

In the worst case, nobody accepts and we just continue to go on with some server resources that I can provide for, and maybe we find other members who own hosting or server packages that we can use.

[neckertb]

Excellent idea, I think, a little logo does not bother me

[kattekliek]

Yes, Viktor, that would be excellent! It would give us a more stable and predicable situation with regard to file storage and data transfer, and no annoying adds.

[Leni]

Agreed!

[Hokuspokus]

Excellent!

[Viktor]

I had a very positive chat today; in short, what we'd want is called more a patron (mécène) than a sponsor. My contact was quite confident that we'd find someone and he offered to help in this process. We'd have to present our project and our needs in two or three paragraphs.

That said, I believe that it's better to start with the little server resources that I have, that we first build up something and get a feeling for what we'd ideally like to have, and then ask for help. Having you LV-experienced folks around helps; but I'd think people are more likely to give us a server when something is visible and measurable. For us, this wouldn't make much of a difference as we need some time for creating or adapting the tools that we want anyway. Do you agree with this?

[neckertb]

Absolutely

[kattekliek]

Absolutely

I agree fully with you, Viktor and Nadine!

[Cori]

Makes sense to me, Viktor.

It also makes counting up the works more fun ... we could say "let's start approaching sponsors when we have 50 works completed," or something.