Forum OpenACS Q&A: Response to Hosting - yet again.
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.
