Result for Question 7

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7.

What are the negative results for users in using an IFHOSP site?

7.1. Lossing control over hosting uptimes and downtimes
Michael Removes control of uptimes. With a self-hosted solution you can control uptime and changes that can influence this; with an IFHOSP site, you lose this control.
Luke Being at the mercy of the IFHOSP's changes, downtimes and bugs.
7.2. Administrator(s) of IFHOSP may interfere with the development of project(s)
Mark possible loss of control over own work. administrators must be completely "hands off" the development, and always provide complete mirroring/withdrawl paths for users of the site.
7.4. Possible extra "collaboration" with unwanted parties ("back-seat programmers", trolls)
Mark possible extra "collaboration" with unwanted parties ("back-seat programmers", trolls). ability to operate private or semi-private developer groups necessary.

clarification: the ability to have private groups is a necessity _imposed_ by the negative factor of participation by unwanted extra developers. the ability to have private groups is _not_ a negative result of using the IFHOSP site itself.
7.5. Low cost in setup will encourage forking of projects
Mark increased instances of forking and/or "reinvention of the wheel", due to lower energy requirement for setting up "project" areas on infrastructure site. browsing existing code must be exceptionally well facilitated.
7.6. Low cost in setup will encourage development of projects that are similar (reinvention of the wheel)
Mark increased instances of forking and/or "reinvention of the wheel", due to lower energy requirement for setting up "project" areas on infrastructure site. browsing existing code must be exceptionally well facilitated.
7.7. Low cost in setup will encourage projects to be publish before they are ready
Michael It becomes more tempting to publish something before it is ready for publication as a project. This has negative effects for both the publicist (who may lose the ability to pull a good crowd when unveiling something that is ready to start hacking on).
7.8. Low cost in setup will encourage starting unserious projects
Michael Increased risk of being taken as an unserious project, as a project is easier to create, and having a complete toolset thus do not count as a significant investment in the project.
7.9. No negative results
Garrett I believe there are no negative results.
7.10. Loss control of the choice of tools hosted on site
Michael Limited tool choice. If you for instance think that BitKeeper or Perforce are better choices than CVS for your version control, this will not be provided by the IFHOSP site, and you thus need to either do your own hosting of at least that component, or give up the choice.
7.11. Loss control of the changes, quality and disappearing of toolset hosted
Michael Increased risk of tool disappearance. Just as an IFHOSP may not add a tool you want, it may also remove a tool you wanted to keep using. This includes the risk that the site itself may be removed, and you may not get your data off it first.
Luke Being at the mercy of the IFHOSP's changes, downtimes and bugs.
7.12. Limited tool customisation
Michael Limited tool customisation. A lot of tools has a lot of configurability; this is often limited by the IFHOSP site, and the chance of doing custom enhancements is lower. Using an IFHOSP site will (in a way) remove the tool from being open source for your purposes (beyond being free and potentially being debuggable.)
7.13. Increase of commitment due to the community expectation on a developer to work on a certain project
Joanne You'd have to more committed to completing the project since others are depending on you (whether a group that you're working with or the customer who needs the software).
7.14. Possible confusion when trying to use an IFHOSP site
Brendan possible confusion
7.15. Having to rely on one's self. There is no other party or company to put the blame on.
Brendan having to rely on one's self

clarification: now you're self-reliant. some times that's not good. it's so much more fun to blame say microsoft or ibm or dell. now you've got yourself to blame too
7.16. More inertia in tool choice. If a new tool become available to replace an old one, it will be harder for an entire IFHOSP site to switch than a single project.
Michael More inertia in tool choice. If a new tool become available to replace an old one, it will be harder for an entire IFHOSP site to switch than a single project.
7.17. Decreases tool knowledge depth. The administrative tasks related to running the tools yourself is also useful in using the tool. This knowledge is removed from the knowledge pool for your project unless somebody incidentally administer the tool elsewhere.
Michael Decreases tool knowledge depth. The administrative tasks related to running the tools yourself is also useful in using the tool. This knowledge is removed from the knowledge pool for your project unless somebody incidentally administer the tool elsewhere.
7.18. Limitation placed on Intellectual Property rights. Depending on the license under which you get to use the IFHOSP, you may suddenly find that you've allowed licensing you hadn't planned.
Michael May influence IP rights. Depending on the license under which you get to use the IFHOSP, you may suddenly find that you've allowed licensing you hadn't planned.
7.19. Users may hope an IFHSOP to implement new features and not to program them themselves. These features may never get implemented.
Luke Sometimes the tools on the IFHOSP are missing features that are needed by a given project, and when using an IFHOSP there is less likelyhood that they will implement better tools because there is hope that one day the IFHOSP will add the features. This could leave the project without needed tools indefinitly.
7.20. Decrease access to various data such as backups and logs from hosting server thus the ability of analysing this data was limited
Michael Decreased data access. Many tools store various forms of data in some form of data repository. Using an IFHOSP will often decrease the ability to easily do analysis or backups of that data.

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Generated On: 27 Sep 2002