Thanks to those who participated in the last survey which was super useful to understand that there is some interest in this idea.
To get further into the details, we’ve come up with another short survey which we would like you all to fill out as well to help guide the discussion.
The leading question is, once more:
If the Infrastructure group were able to offer a VPS service - cooperatively run, cooperatively owned hardware, in cooperative data centre running on renewable energy, would you…
I think of we just move this thread and the previous one into a public category that should do the trick (want me to do that?)
This private hosting one was created as a private group (which I’m not actually even technically in, but I’m an admin hence why I can see and participate) because potentially confidential business info was going to be discussed.
Also just FYI I’ve not yet responded to the survey(s) but am about to launch a hosted Cloudron offering on top of Heztner and so would be VERY interested in a Co-op VPS provider assuming 1) 100% renewable (excluding bioenergy) and 2) prices as close to Hetzner as possible (which I gather is likely similar to what many have said)
The site seems to be only in French, but Ouvaton provide a cloud service using NextCloud
I’m a bit out of my depth, the main difference between this and a single co-operative attempting this is to benefit from pooling resources and economies of scale?
In which case, have yous considered that we might approach Ouvaton and other co-operatives to ask them if they want in? I suppose that involving more co-operatives means that the membership is bigger and harder to manage, but that it would benefit more from economies of scale. I suppose that not involving other co-operatives now doesn’t mean that we can’t scale up later
Yes, basically this – word is that it can be hard for coöps to raise all the cash necessary for hardware, hosting, and putting automation in place when we’re operating individually.
Ouvaton looks super-interesting (and amazing that they’re so long-running ); if I’m understanding right, they might indeed want to be a collaborator / service user / customer, using this coöp hardware as the VPS provider behind their service in a similar way to what @jdaviescoates is talking about, and like Autonomic is interested in this service as a basis for Co-op Cloud.
Ouvaton have indeed been around a while (although not as long as I thought) - I remember them setting up. The model is end-user ownership - as the name implies.
I think what’s key to what we’re trying here is taking this in chunks. When we tried to understand all the needs and possibilities we felt overwhelmed. When we said “let’s start with a VPS service - using cooperative data centre facilities” it all became more manageable.
How we then link up with others I think is next step.
); if I’m understanding right, they might indeed want to be a collaborator / service user / customer, using this coöp hardware as the VPS provider behind their service in a similar way to what 