[pianotech] Google groups (Horace)

[paul bruesch]

I certainly agree that the listserve should absolutely NOT be hosted at PTG
home office, unless all the proper security and integrity precautions are
taken. And to do so for one server offers precisely zero economy of scale
relative to a real hosting service's facility.

As for porting the existing archives to such an off-site host, they do
exist, as do all the attachments to the best of my knowledge. The older
(pre-HL days) attachments are linked to in the message archives as being
located at www dot ptg dot org slash etc., etc., whereas in fact those are
located, along with all the HL-era attachments, at mail dot ptg dot org
slash etc., etc..

I have always (now, as well as during a 25-year IT career) seen the strong
argument in favor of roll-your-own software rather than buying
off-the-shelf. For PTG to continue having its own mailman listserve server
isn't quite roll-your-own, but it's "safer" than going off to google
groups. No one, likely not even Larry Page and Sergey Brin will tell you
with certainty the status of the service known as Google Groups five years
hence. Nor can anyone can offer with any certainty the status of support
for mailman, or Linux OS, or any other component of this proposed
environment five years hence, but it's quite certain that any particular
installation will still be functional... outdated and unsupported perhaps,
but still there. If Google Groups goes away, what happens to "our stuff"?
Presumably it would be available for export at some point prior to
shutdown, but then to go where, exactly?

All that said... if it were my call, I think I'd still vote for migrating
formerly-PTG pianotech communication functionality to Google Groups. It's
simple. It's free. It's secure (as in not lost.) And it's available for the
foreseeable future.

Paul Bruesch
Stillwater, MN

On Tue, Feb 26, 2013 at 10:15 AM, Susan Kline <skline at peak.org> wrote:

> **
> Hi, Paul, everyone ... Horace answered you yesterday evening, but
> accidentally sent to me
> instead of to the list. He can't get to a computer till mid-morning, so
> late (too late) last night he
> asked me to forward his reply to pianotech. -- Susan
>
> -------------------------
> Hi, Paul,
>
> Yes...I'm semi-sorry to say that I could/can do that myself. What makes
> more sense to me is to have some ISP set up and manage the server, and then
> have some TBD person(s) act as administrators to setup mailman and then to
> populate it with the archives from the existing instance.
>
> Missing, unless they were to be made available by the guild, would be the
> attachments. I'm sure that many of us collectively have most of that stuff
> available...just not necessarily connected to the correct original post.
>
> While for many things I really like Amazon Web Services, I think the best
> location for something of this nature is a real-time ISP. There are
> thousands around the country, many with very competitive rates. The
> advantage of this route is that all of the support of the physical server
> and its OS and related software is managed by the ISP, leaving someone else
> largely only having to worry about the mailman application and things
> related to it. If you're wondering where $30K has been going, it's for too
> few people to manage too few boxes...there's no economy of scale and it
> looks like pianotech has been taking a hit for about 50% of someone's
> salary...from a business perspective, that's clearly unsustainable. What's
> inexplicable/illogical is why this wasn't contracted out years ago...but,
> that's another topic for another time.
>
> I'm happy to check with the ISP I use; or, someone else can...doesn't
> matter. I've used Sonic.net for over 15 years and always been pleased
> with their services costs. There may be other places that are cheaper
> and/or better.
>
> Anyway, thanks for your kind words, Paul. I'm speaking up because I hate
> to see what appears to be so many people effectively cut off or opting out
> when there is no real need and the options proferred really don't provide
> the same service for the same amount of end-user effort.
>
> Kind regards
>
> Horace
>
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20130226/51e58e40/attachment.htm>