Re: Idea: 'ethical hosting' [formerly mailman service (free for FOSS projects)]

[ng0 <contact.ng0@cryptolab.net>]

Pjotr Prins transcribed 2.2K bytes:
> Continuing this train of thought: there is actually a business case
> for something like ethical hosting. For us it is 'easy' to create
> services such as mail servers with IMAP and web front-end, mail-main
> servers, wikimedia servers etc. But it is not easy for everyone, And
> it is certainly not easy to get it right, i.e., setup and security.
> 
> Individuals and companies are willing to pay for VPS, and I am sure
> they are willing to pay for a full FOSS stack deployable on a VPS.
> There is added value and therefore money. 
> 
> With Guix we can make configurable deployments that gives people to
> deploy anywhere. I know many companies and organisations (such as
> universities!) outsource their mail servers to companies such as
> google and Microsoft. They ought to be getting concerned about
> privacy, not least because of recent changes in American law - let
> alone those that operate in less lawful countries.
> 
> It is too much to achieve for one person, but I think if we can get a
> number of people together we can turn Guix work into cash. Mailman
> would be a good start. Next a configurable mail server with webmail to
> compete with gmail and protonmail?
> 
> On Tue, Apr 18, 2017 at 11:18:14AM +0000, ng0 wrote:
> > Good and interesting idea, if you have the money.
> > I prefer to work on snippets and instructions, deploying more servers
> > than necessary isn't an option for myself at the moment.
> 
> I don't think we should offer VPS (at first). But we can offer the
> choice of using other VPS'. The VPS marked is overcrowded and very
> competitive - I would not want to compete with that. I want to compete
> with companies that offer hosting, but do not provide the software
> stack. I also want people to have access to their own VPS. That is the
> ethical part.

Okay, then I do not understandand completely where you are going with this.
For a hosted service you need a host first. Do you want to offer consulting
work, so that this can be deployed at service (which furthermore would
require some legal annoyance), as a service? In other words, some of us
probably to cover the legal part with a contract at Guix Europe e.v. (if
the registered association law in France works similar to the ones in Germany)
will set up services on demand for interested people and organizations?

> > Mantioning mailman and GuixSD: We'd first need to get all of Mailman
> > packaged. 2/3 parts are still missing, I have started to work on hyperkitty
> > but if you are interested and willing to continue it would be nice.
> 
> Yes. postfix we also need.

But we do have OpenSMTPD and Dovecot, which is enough already to make Postfix
not an blocking issue. All I know about Mailman is that it needs some MTA.
My only contact with it so far was administration and packaging.

> 
> > Afterwards we would need a system service, and then it would be good
> > to try this out in the wild (or intranet) to see what can be done to
> > run this service (and all connected ones) in a container.
> 
> Aye, Guix rocks so much it hurts ;).
> 
> Pj.
> 
> -- 
> 

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