Possibility of Fedora sponsoring a Freenode server

[David Nalley]

On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 4:58 PM, Mike McGrath <mmcgrath at redhat.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Mar 2010, Nigel Jones wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 9:39 AM, Nick Bebout <nick at bebout.net> wrote:
>> > What is everyone's thoughts about us sponsoring a Freenode server?  Their
>> > general requirements are noted on http://freenode.net/hosting_ircd.shtml
>> > and I've discussed them with mmcgrath and he has said they seem doable,
>> > probably on telia1 or osuosl1.  Basically we'd be providing them a xen,
>> > guest with about 1.5 or 2 GB ram, client servers should expect to sustain
>> > around 1Mbps of traffic, with much higher peaks. Total usage for client
>> > servers is usually around 320 gigabytes per month, while hidden hubs are
>> > generally much lower overall.
>> >
>> > We'd be giving them at least a user account on it, they prefer sudo if
>> > possible.  They handle the day-to-day administering of the ircd, either
>> > scp'ing new binaries or compiling the ircd on the server itself, and
>> > copying new config files to there.
>> >
>> > I've talked to their sponsor liaison and they seem to be interested.  Mike
>> > and I wanted to discuss it on here before I send the actual "proposal"
>> > email.
>> >
>> > I think it would be a good idea, especially since we use them so much for
>> > our IRC channels, it'd be nice to contribute a server back to the network.
>> Sorry but I'd put a -1 on this.
>>
>> There was a discussion/proposal (via Trac) from mdomsch there and I
>> know I put some reasons down.  Heres a few though:
>>
>> * Freenode already have an osuosl server iirc
>> * Have we discussed this w/ our sponsors, they've been giving us
>> space/bandwidth to do stuff that would benefit Fedora Project
>> directly.
>> * Freenode has had a lot of DDOS attacks recently, putting a sponsor
>> under the potential for such strain is silly.
>>
>> I'd also say that the Board should have some say on this.
>>
>
> I think the good citizen thing to do for freenode would be to host a
> server.  We do use them extensively, giving back is the right thing to do.
> But the above points do give me serious pause and are good points.  What
> do other think?
>
>        -Mike

So I think it would be good for us to support them, but not sure if
giving them a server is the only thing (or even the best thing) we can
do for them. Could we for instance see if CommArch would be interested
in supporting them financially? The negative points are pretty
weighty.

David