[alicebot-archcomm] alicebot.org server status

[Dr. Richard S. Wallace]

Input from the community and ArchComm is welcome on the issue of moving the
alicebot.org server.

We have an offer from another AIML company to host alicebot.org for free.

Sunlitsurf.com is currently providing us a kind of "subsidized" service
right now for about $50 a month.  They originally offered us the service for
free too, but our laywer (now gone) recommended that we pay a small monthly
fee to avoid a situation in which the provider could "pull the plug" without
warning.  Also, as a bona fide paying customer, it became easier for us to
call up and request things, like fixing problems when something went wrong.

>From my perspective, Sunlitsurf has done an excellent technical job of
hosting alicebot.org as we've grown from a small trickle of clients to one
entire T-1 line of traffic.

We had a slight problem with our last webmaster trying to control everything
himself.  This had nothing whatsoever to do with Sunlitsurf.  We can
probably avoid this problem in the future by relying on a group of volunteer
webmasters drawn from the community, not from the Foundation Board or
Officers.  Eventually of course we would love to hire a professional
webmaster and systems administrator.

One advantage of switching to the new free server is that it is housed
locally here in Oakland, CA in a facility where I can go easily, and I know
the people who work there.  Sunlitsurf is 3000 miles away in West Virginia,
and although I have spoken with them on the phone a few times, it's not the
same as face-to-face meetings.  Our CEO had some concerns about their
responsiveness to our request to change to root password, for example.

The disadvantage of the "free" server is that it puts us back in the
vulnerable position of depending on a company that can, however nice they
seem now, pull the plug without warning at any time in the future.

With real funds and fundraising, of course, none of this would be an issue.
We would simply pay for first-class web hosting services.  (Then we would
have the problem of being dependent on donors perhaps, but that is another
story...)

Rich
--
"How can you have an anti-drug drug czar if religion is the opiate of the
people under a czarist system and our president is a religious man opposed
to
people having opiates in their system?"--Michael Modes