[wx-discuss] Re: [wxPython-users] new project hosting provider... me?

[Tal Einat]

On 5/26/07, Robin Dunn <robin at alldunn.com> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> Sorry for cross-posting, but I wanted to make sure that everybody in the
> community sees this message.  Please send follow ups to the wx-discuss
> list.
>
> Over the past few months I've become increasingly dissatisfied with
> dotsrc.org as a project hosting provider.  We currently have CVS and the
> mail lists there, but I've never moved anything else to their servers
> because they still haven't convinced me that it would be worth the
> effort, even when sourceforge was having serious reliability troubles.
> Lately they have been taking longer and longer to respond to support
> requests, (one request a couple months ago sat there for almost two
> weeks until one of us gave them step-by-step instructions on how to do
> it) and they still haven't started officially supporting subversion,
> something they have saying for years now will be "ready soon."
>
> I looked at a number of free alternatives, but they all boil down to the
> same problem - those services that do offer reliable service are
> typically slow (like SF.net), or there's some catch involved (Google
> Code's license restrictions).  So, I started thinking about using my own
> server instead, which has been very snappy and reliable. (It's currently
> hosting http://wxpython.org and http://wiki.wxpython.org, and is located
> at a colocation facility with tier-1 connectivity.)  The issue with this
> idea is that hosting the wxWidgets SVN repository (and perhaps
> eventually the mail lists and web site too) would probably take up a
> fair amount of the resources on my host, and to be on the safe side I
> should probably upgrade my hosting plan, which will cost about an extra
> $15/month.
>
> Which brings me to my question for the community.  How many of you feel
> that it'd be worth donating a few bucks to get, among other things,
> faster source code checkouts and SVN support? (Finally!)  If we also
> move the mail lists and archives then we can switch back to Mailman and
> dump *@^$# ezmlm.
>
> I'd be interested in whether you are willing, and also what amount you
> would feel comfortable in donating.  Ideally it should be an amount that
> doesn't hurt, there should be enough people donating that everybody
> could contribute just the cost of a few lattes and we would have plenty
> and some to spare.  No need to think of this request as making a
> commitment yet, I just want to get a gut feel for feasibility.  We can
> also discuss other possible solutions.  BTW, most of what I paid for the
> first year of service at my current level was paid with contributions
> that the wxPython users have made, although none of them knew that's
> what the money was going to be used for.
>
> In the meantime, I'll see if I can do a test run of converting a
> snapshot of the CVS repository and setting up the server, so that we can
> get a better feel for resource utilization and response times.  The last
> time I played with converting from CVS to SVN a couple years ago, I
> remember it taking a few hours, but most of that was scripts crunching
> data.  When it was finished, the SVN repo had over 45K revisions in it.
>   So doing it again will be good practice for the real thing.


I would gladly make a one-time donation of some 10$ to wxWidgets and
wxPython, since I use them extensively. And I trust you (Robin) would put
them to good use.

However, I would rather have you spend more time leading the development of
these projects, rather than maintain a server by yourself.

Also, what would happen if sometime in the future you wouldn't have the time
to maintain the server? Or even if you just wanted to take a month-long
vacation? There are various good reasons for not using private servers which
you have to maintain.

I'm not saying "don't do it", just asking "are you sure this would be an
effective solution in the long run?".

- Tal
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