[ubuntu-za] Request for sponsored hosting and sysadmin resources to replace Canonical hosting

[Morgan Collett]

Hi Ubunterozas!

There's a mail thread on the loco-contacts list about the
non-responsiveness of Canonical sysadmins to LoCoTeam site issues and
requests. Representatives of the LoCoTeams in Canada, Chicago,
Venezuela, Finland and others have complained or noted the almost
complete lack of responsiveness to requests through the designated
channel (an RT instance). This was raised two weeks ago in a Community
Council meeting, and sabdfl noted that the sysadmin team has a large
backlog of "internal" Canonical tasks too.[1]

There is work in progress to form a LoCoCouncil[2] to govern
LoCoTeams, which will help as these representatives will have
authority to prioritise and look after LoCo interests.

However, given that there seems to be a shortage of sysadmin
resources, I'd like to look into hosting our site ourselves, with
local sponsorship of the infrastructure costs, and a set of
individuals who have responsibility to keep the server secure, up, and
with the apps we want[3] installed, configured and maintained, with
backups etc.

Any company sponsoring this hosting will get credit on the site - we
can discuss what is appropriate. I think a 1 year commitment to
sponsoring would be best.

Anyone volunteering to help with sysadmin will be held to a set of
responsibilities and should be prepared to put in time and work in a
team. I'm especially looking at those I know who run Ubuntu Server on
xen hosting etc. You would also need to have signed the Ubuntu Code of
Conduct, and be suitably thick-skinned as sysadmins never get thanked
when everything works, but get all the blame when things break...
(Been there.)

This is by no means an actual decision to move away from Canonical
hosting, and if there are no takers we'll stay with the status quo and
I'll push the sysadmins via IRC with renewed energy.

So... who's interested?

[1] http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2008/01/10/%23ubuntu-meeting.html
[2] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoTeams/LoCoCouncil
[3] Initially moin, planet, drupal for which there are LoCo themes
readily available. We can discuss alternatives, but the sponsorship
and hosting shouldn't be conditional on any specific apps.

Regards
Morgan