There's too many argument off-shoots so I'll just sum up my overly
personal opinions here.

* I agree with Ross and Co. about their concerns. When I offered AADL
as a possibility I was doing more so for the short term to get a site
up and running at least until the conference. Long-term I think would
require some binding agreement to make it palatable at any
institution, even a university. I think AADL, OSU, etc would all be
stop-gaps at the most in the short-term.

* I think in the long-run it would make sense to either revisit the
idea of non-profit status or find a paid colo host and include the
cost either in the yearly conference or by donations. I think this
thread shows that there needs to be something resembling governance.
Getting someone to admin the box would be another challenge.

* I didn't argue that much in channel truthfully because I didn't have
an alternative to bring to the table which I thought was workable. It
sounds like dchud has more experiences to give input on.

* Hosting at a vendor that may be criticized, I think is an obviously
not great idea. Which is another concern for any library that offers.
This is why I don't believe aadl would not be a long-term solution as
stands and I'm weary of others. I think many in the community see it
as a source of trustful information and might see sponsorship or
hosting as a possible compromise of that trust.

* In the end I think this is more a problem with what people think of
the community, their responsibilities in the community and the future
of code4lib then a simple hosting problem. Democracies seem to involve
more work.

* The core system was pretty much up to date on anvil, the web apps
mostly weren't as can be expected with independent users. Any proposal
should probably include details and who is responsible for software
upgrades such as the code4lib site and what is expected.

I'm game for whatever the community decides.

Eby

On 8/2/07, Ross Singer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> This much more soundly articulates my concern (I was using university
> counsel as an example, but anyone in the chain can potentially disrupt
> this entire community for whatever their reason).
>
> Ed and I actually shared this concern (well, I did and Ed was probably
> idle and wasn't disagreeing).  We saw something similar recently:
> John Blyberg had offered a similar sort of hosting service at AADL.  I
> asked him about what would happen to said service if, on the odd
> chance, he were to leave.  He was rather vague about it, but said it
> would be the responsibility of his successor.  About two weeks later
> he announced his resignation and there has been nothing about this
> (that I know of) since.  Maybe Ryan Eby has more info here.  This
> isn't a criticism of Blyberg, AADL or good intentions.  It's just
> reality.  And I think it illustrates the point perfectly.
>
> -Ross.
>