Forum OpenACS Q&A: Hosting - yet again.

At least half of my initial meeting with clients is spent describing why a dynamic site is superior to a static one.  Most of my clients think that "dynamic" means "flashy"; they haven't ever contemplated having all of their data linked together inside of a database.

In some cases, I lose: One client (for whom I do a lot of sysadmin work) decided not to go with me for their new Web site because I don't have a graphic designer on my staff, and I'm now (once again, thankfully) a one-man shop as opposed to a larger company.  I kept trying to convince the woman in charge that putting up a static site with PHP Phorum is very nice, but what happens when they want to add e-commerce?

At the other extreme, a client chose to work with me because he's known me for years, and because I told him how much I can do for how little money.  Only after I was hired did he decide to sit down and look at OpenACS -- and his mind was blown open by the possibilities.  He immediately ordered a copy of Philip's book, and will get back to me soon with ideas regarding how he wants development to move forward.  What was going to be a simple site with forums for teachers and students in a network of elementary schools will now become an online community that everyone can be proud of.

So the philosophical issues are definitely difficult to overcome, and I spend a lot of time describing the possibilities and how important it is that the applications have a unified underlying data model.  (This isn't always important, of course, which is why I use Zope and mod_perl for many projects that aren't appropriate for OpenACS.)

But then, as you point out, we get to the issue of hosting.  Many of my clients have their own permanent Internet connection, and those who don't are welcome to colocate in my office for a pretty small charge.  And when that doesn't work, hub.org or a similar facility is just fine for most of them.

What do I tell those people who compare $20/month for PHP and MySQL with the dramatically higher charges associated with OpenACS?  First, I remind them that comparing PHP with OpenACS is an apples-to-oranges comparison, since one is a programming language and the other is an entire Web application framework with working, integrated programs that are developed by a community, rather than just me (or someone else).  If they want to go and develop their own software, then that's fine -- but it'll cost them more in the long run, and give them less flexibility.

Having my own frame relay connection is definitely useful when convincing clients to go with OpenACS (and me); if you have more than one or two clients interested in using OpenACS, then you might want to consider doing the same.

I saw rackshack.net advertising a 1.8GHZ Athlon with 1GB memory and a 40GB disk with zero setup charge for $100 US per month a couple of weeks back.  It's not $20 per month, but neither is it $300.  You might want to use such a machine for the sites you already run, and charge this non profit $50 for hosting.

If you want the group to go with ACS it sounds like you'll have to show them how easy it is by demonstrating the sites you've already built, and put to rest their fears that it will be too much work for volounteers (i.e. them) because somebody who knows better (i.e. you) will take care of it.

Good luck.

If you look for a hosted server with lots of bandwith, you might also end up at "1und1" (www.1und1.com/hosting), german based hosting company. Euro 49 (roughly $45) per month for a Celereon 1.2GhZ, 256MB, 40GB server including 40GB of traffic.

If you only want to have a website that uses OpenACS but have no motivation to execute SSH, thats a different story. Is anyone out there offering SiteWideAdmin access to an OpenACS installation? Things that jump into my mind:

• What is the risk of crashing all services on a server, if you only can modify .adp pages?
• Furthermore, is it really necessary to change any code files to run a decent website for your own (handling the style of the website via CSS and stuff like that).
• Is Postgres capable of keeping track of a quota for one database (or what is the consequence if you enforce a hard quota on the user directory and let the postgres database run on it)

Wouldn't this be a fairly simple thing to set up? You have one page that has summary records and when you click on one summary record you get the detail record. Perhaps it should be moderated so entries get a look at a moderator before they get accepted (moderator gets an email, clicks a "yes" or "no" link). There'd also be an "add new" page, a "delete/modify" page, etc.

Seems to me that you could take something like the room-reservation system and turn it into this.

Or, as you say, it could be done even more simply. Even a static HTML page that someone (or a few people) would be responsible for would work--that person, or persons, would get email sent to mailto:acshosts@openacs.org (or some other alias) and could just add/modify/delete entries as appropriate. Even if it kept up in a fairly desultory fashion, it would be better than nothing.

how about activating the classified ads module ?

This way hosting providers could register as OACS users and post ads themselves. They could control when their ads automatically expire, and modify their ads when needed (and users could see the ad histories). Classifieds already incorporates general comments as well as links to contact the advertisers. Prospective users could also review the providers' other contributions to the community (member history) as part of their hosting decisions.