[SAC] Domain Name Hosting

Committees SAC mailing list
1

Hi,

In attempting to move OpenLayers and other related projects away from living
entirely on MetaCarta's infrastructure, I am currently looking at Domain
Name Hosting.

Currently, the following domain names related to these projects are
registered:

  openlayers.org
  openlayers.com
  openlayers.net

The primary is the former, but some traffic comes in every day from
each of the latter -- approximately 200 visits a week for the past
month.

TileCache also has tilecache.org, tilecache.net, and tilecache.com.

FeatureServer has only featureserver.org at this time.

Currently, OSGeo hosts domains for several of its incubated projects, but
in most cases, no more than one.

1. I would like to motion that for any incubated projects, it is expected
    that OSGeo will host one domain by default, and more upon request +
    approval by SAC.
   
    1.1) if SAC is supportive of this, I would like to propose that OSGeo
         hosts these three domains of OpenLayers.

2. I would like to know what people's opinions are on hosting domain names
    for 'friends of OSGeo' projects, ones that are not incubated (usually
    because they are too small). It seems to me that hosting up to one
    domain for these would be fair, but that hosting additional domain
    names should be only associated with a donation of some sort that would
    financially support that hosting -- so a minimal $500 sponsorship would
    presumably support some number of years of hosting for domains, and
    OSGeo could accept the burden of doing so at that point.

I am hopeful that we can agree that hosting project domains -- specifically,
to prevent them from possibly being abused by organizations who might want to
'usurp' the good name that projects have built -- is a task that OSGeo
can perform as part of its role as a steward of the projects that have
gone through incubation, and look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Best Regards,
--
Christopher Schmidt
MetaCarta

2

On Feb 8, 2010, at 4:02 PM, Christopher Schmidt wrote:

Currently, OSGeo hosts domains for several of its incubated projects, but
in most cases, no more than one.

1. I would like to motion that for any incubated projects, it is expected
   that OSGeo will host one domain by default, and more upon request +
   approval by SAC.

   1.1) if SAC is supportive of this, I would like to propose that OSGeo
        hosts these three domains of OpenLayers.

2. I would like to know what people's opinions are on hosting domain names
   for 'friends of OSGeo' projects, ones that are not incubated (usually
   because they are too small). It seems to me that hosting up to one
   domain for these would be fair, but that hosting additional domain
   names should be only associated with a donation of some sort that would
   financially support that hosting -- so a minimal $500 sponsorship would
   presumably support some number of years of hosting for domains, and
   OSGeo could accept the burden of doing so at that point.

I think it should be no problem for SAC to take on paying for domains for any incubated and incubating projects, including typodomains, and other variants within reason. The cost is not so great. Or maybe so much domain $$/year/project. (no SSL certs though)

For affiliates, I don't know that we should be so generous, but I don't see a problem with SAC even maintaining one or two domains in that instance as well. Ownership of the domain name is one of the most effective "project ownership" chits available, and handing over the keys to an affiliate domain is in essence trusting SAC to steward things in event of conflict or abandonment. This is a better situation than if someone just silently walks away or makes a big stink about taking their ball and playing elsewhere.

I think in this instance we should look to worry about it when the bill is too high and we need to prune stuff, not the other way.

Howard

3

Christopher Schmidt wrote:

Currently, OSGeo hosts domains for several of its incubated projects, but
in most cases, no more than one.

1. I would like to motion that for any incubated projects, it is expected
    that OSGeo will host one domain by default, and more upon request +
    approval by SAC.

Chris,

This is current practice, and I'm happy to make it policy.

+1

    1.1) if SAC is supportive of this, I would like to propose that OSGeo
         hosts these three domains of OpenLayers.

+1

2. I would like to know what people's opinions are on hosting domain names
    for 'friends of OSGeo' projects, ones that are not incubated (usually
    because they are too small). It seems to me that hosting up to one
    domain for these would be fair, but that hosting additional domain
    names should be only associated with a donation of some sort that would
    financially support that hosting -- so a minimal $500 sponsorship would
    presumably support some number of years of hosting for domains, and OSGeo could accept the burden of doing so at that point.

I don't agree with expecting a sponsorship, but I do think that a motion
would be appropriate for taking on DNS responsibilities for hosted projects
that aren't formally OSGeo projects. In some cases it might be part of the
same motion in which we decide to provide svn/trac hosting.

I am certainly supportive of handling tilecache.org and featureserver.org,
though I'm a bit ambivalent about taking on the .net and .com domains for
tilecache. The costs do start to mount up. Consider me +1 on the .orgs
and +0 on the .net/.com domains.

I am hopeful that we can agree that hosting project domains -- specifically,
to prevent them from possibly being abused by organizations who might want to
'usurp' the good name that projects have built -- is a task that OSGeo
can perform as part of its role as a steward of the projects that have
gone through incubation, and look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Have suffered the conquest of libtiff.org by domain pirates in a botched
handover between me, and the original registrant, I'm keen to have our
project domains under responsible long term management.

Best regards,
--
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam@pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush | Geospatial Programmer for Rent