Re: [PROPOSAL] lua-users.org

["John Belmonte" <jvb@...>]

This is a digest responding to some of the feedback regarding lua-users.org.

David Jeske wrote:
> Why not use "users.lua.org" instead of "lua-users.org"?


The reason is to keep a clear separation between the user-run site and the
official Lua site.

James Hearn wrote:
> lua-users.org sounds like a great idea. I personally would spend
> some time there :) Maybe this could somehow be merged with
> the idea of a code repository that has come up on the list? I
> really want to see more lua code!

Right, lua-users.org is not limited to a wiki.  Any component that can run
from CGI, php, etc. may be set up.  It just takes a plan along with the time
to implement and support it.

Michael Cuddy wrote:
> Right now, my domain (fensende.com) is hosted on a little
> NetBSD box  at my day-job.  Once my company gets its
> T1 installed, I'd be more than happy to host lua-users.org
> on fensende.com.  I can't do it now because we're
> struggling with a crappy 384 DSL link for thw whole
> company :-(  But hopefully things will clear up in a month or two.

There have been similar offers.  However please be aware of the security
issues.  Several (perhaps dozens) of community members will need web
development access to your machine.  Anything on the machine's local network
is also vulnerable.

Philippe Lhoste wrote:
> I just wonder what will happen if no volunteer is found to
> pay the charges... But I suppose there will be plenty of
> generous givers.

It doesn't appear that will be a problem.  In addition to the offers posted
to lua-l, I've received email from a few parties (some wishing to be
anonymous) offering to contribute.  However maybe this is not necessary (see
below).

Eric Ries wrote:
> Any reason why we can't take advantage of free hosting at
> SourceForge? They are very generous with bandwidth, hd
> space, etc. There are no fees of any kind. We can even have
> lua-users.org DNS pointed to our web page there.

I came to the same realization after noticing that the MoinMoinWiki project
actually runs their wiki from SourceForge.net.  What SourceForge provides
sounds similar to what commercial shared hosting offers.  Furthermore it
doesn't appear that we need an actual software project to use SourceForge,
as long as we are on some kind of "Open Source mission" (I think supporting
Lua which is free software will qualify).

In the case that something should happen to SourceForge.net (like VA Linux
pulls the plug) it's always possible to go to plan B, which is to move to
hosting supported by community contributions.

However for using the lua-users.org domain, I'm not sure how seamless
SourceForge's VHOST service is (does it work across all components such as
mailing lists, cvs, etc?).  Also SourceForge does not provide a DNS service
so it may not be possible to set up subdomains to external sites.

I think SourceForge.net is worth a try.

Regards,
-John