Re: <nettime> Direction of Travel

Hey Allan, others,

I've been pondering the trade off between paying for a commercial host versus looking for non-paid solutions. Initially i thought it "obvious" that we should pick a service (whether turn-key or something offering full control such as Panix indeed) and simply pay for it. I'd still be more than happy to front up the first year's hosting costs.

However, i reread with interest Ted, Felix and David's state of nettime retrospective from 2015 [1], where it's emphasised that money never changed hands. I think that's laudable, and indeed, financial arrangements often imply expectations and demands that could turn thing sour in difficult moments. But on the other hand, "volunteer" servers such as ljudmila.org are being paid for by someone, so in that sense there would be no change.

To try and practically advance things without getting too caught up in idealistic or theoretical discussions, my draft proposal would be:

* Ensure wherever we host, we can make use of our own domain name. Future hosting changes (which i expect will be a fact of life) will at least be transparent to subscribers,

* take Rich's suggestion of a trusted hosting company where we're more likely to get a good-reputation sending IP, like Panix,

* i'd be happy to pay the first yearly hosting fee and do initial setup of the DNS and basic software to run Mailman,

* of course, i'd ensure the other volunteer janitors named by Christian get SSH access to the machine as soon as possible so i do not become a SPOF.

* If additional moderators want to volunteer, i welcome that, but i would suggest we at least introduce ourselves during the next video sync, to build trust (explicitly NOT an interview, we have no right to start gatekeeping).

This would allow us to actually relieve Felix as he has requested within a week or two, optimistically.

This is just my proposal - i can start on this work this weekend, unless folks have concerns.

In the meantime, Jordan and John, have you heard back from Riseup.net or Rhizome.org?

Thanks,

1. https://nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-1511/msg00013.html

On 16 Jun 2023, at 07:13, Allan Siegel via Nettime-tmp <[email protected]> wrote:

Hello,
Obviously there are differences on how to solve the technical issues just as there are questions regarding the social issues; what would be helpful if those with the expertise and experience dealing with the technical questions proposed a method for sorting out these questions; AND, secondly, what are the expenses involved in these various solutions (hosting, etc.) and how do these expenses get covered?

Also, I'm wondering - because the social and technical questions are interrelated - how do the various technical solutions impact how we are able to address the social issues that have been mentioned? I think this is why the hosting service really matters...

best
allan

On 2023. 06. 15. 0:42, Jaime Magiera via Nettime-tmp wrote:

Yes, apparently it hit a nerve for you. The point was that a container would need to be hosted, one option would be on a Kubernetes cluster service. Otherwise, it’s just running on someone’s VM. There are many non-commercial options. Containerization and Kubernetes are my day job. Likewise, I managed mailman mailing lists for several decades. Portability is a key technical hurdle as the list hosting changes over time. 

I don’t think anyone is prioritizing technical over social. The technological issue is clear and being discussed as a separate issue.

On Jun 14, 2023, at 6:06 PM, paul van der walt via Nettime-tmp <[email protected]> wrote:

Hey Jaime, Christian,

On 2023-06-14 at 11:39 -04, quoth Jaime Magiera via Nettime-tmp <[email protected]>:

I’ve been quietly following this discussion, but will pipe in on this aspect: Running from a
container would be a wise solution. The archives can be stored on a mount and backed up
elsewhere. I’m happy to provide my expertise in the area of containerization (and Kubernetes if so
desired) to help if this is the way folks decide to go.

I appreciate folks are just brainstorming, but i feel i should add my 2c too.  It is my literal day job to support a fairly sizeable e-commerce website (millions to billions of SKUs, millions of requests per minute) with AWS infrastructure, and we use a lot of Kubernetes and Docker.  In that context, the trade-offs make sense.  But i guess my only plea would be, let's please not overcook and overcomplicate things from the get-go.  Bringing Kubernetes into the discussion is almost the canonical example of over-complication for hosting a mailing list.

I think it's noble and understandable to want to do work up-front to make things infinitely lift-and-shiftable, but personally my philosophy is what is sometimes jokingly called "KISS - keep it simple, stupid".  Concretely, that would mean i'd favour using (e.g.) plain-old Mailman from a package repository of Linux or indeed (Rich's suggestion) OpenBSD for stability and security.

If i'm to be involved in the technical side of things (and that's the main reason i volunteered for janitorial duties) i'd want to hold off on committing to any one particular hosting company / technological choice / etc. because, as others have pointed out, our main difficulties are social.

I hope my response is sufficiently measured, but the mention of Kubernetes hit a bit of a nerve for me :).

Cheers,
p.
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