Answer from Michael
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Michael
regards himself/herself as:
An expert user in IFHOSP sites
1. What are the objectives of an IFHOSP site?
No Response!
2. What tools can be employed on an IFHOSP site and what are the important features and usability factors for each of them?
No Response!
3. What work practices and culture should be promoted?
No Response!
4. What are factors that movitate users to use an IFHOSP site?
No Response!
5. What are barriers that prevent users from using an IFHOSP site?
No Response!
6. What are the positive results for users in using an IFHOSP site?
6.1
Decreased project startup cost. The use of premade hosting infrastructure makes it possible to set up a fairly complete set of project infrastructure very simply, avoiding the normal costs (in terms of time or money) associated with finding a place to host it, aquiring a domain name, finding which software to use, setting up various software, etc.
Decrease the startup cost of hosting an Open Source/Free Software project
6.2
Users and potential contributors are likely to be used to the tools. If you set up your own infrastructure, you are likely to do it customized to your needs - and this makes it less likely that you'll choose the packages your users are used to. If you use a large site like e.g. Sourceforge, there is also an increased chance that the users are used to just that site and the particular implementation of the tools there.
Uniform toolset with uniform interface for users
6.3
Increased chance of people finding your site if they look for a project of that type, as people look at the IFHOSP sites to find projects (at least before creating their own projects on the same site...)
Centralised location to find Free Software/Open Source Software
6.4
Decreased administrative costs. No need to maintain the infrastructure yourself.
Decrease cost of hosting a project
6.5
"Complete" basic toolset comes for free, which makes it more likely that the complete set of tools are implemented. In a self-hosted project, tools that are convenient but do not give very strong immediate benefits are often postponed.
A more complete toolset - individually hosted sites usually only have tools that just meet the needs
6.6
Quality Assurance on the tools you use are done by more than your own local developer- and userbase, so problems are more likely to be fixed before they impair one of your developers/users.
Tools with better quality than individually hosted sites
6.7
Special custom tools may be available, which would be a pain to implement yourself (either as code or as configuration.)
Special custom tools may be readily available
7. What are the negative results for users in using an IFHOSP site?
7.1
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.
Loss control of the choice of tools hosted on site
7.2
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.
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.
7.3
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.)
Limited tool customisation
7.4
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.
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.
7.5
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.
Lossing control over hosting uptimes and downtimes
7.6
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.
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.
7.7
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.
Loss control of the changes, quality and disappearing of toolset hosted
7.8
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.
Decrease access to various data such as backups and logs from hosting server thus the ability of analysing this data was limited
7.9
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).
Low cost in setup will encourage projects to be publish before they are ready
7.10
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.
Low cost in setup will encourage starting unserious projects
8. What are factors that motivate adminstrators to setup or maintain an IFHOSP site?
No Response!
9. What are barriers that prevent adminstrators from setting up or maintaining an IFHOSP site?
No Response!
10. What are the positive results for adminstrators in setting up or maintaining an IFHOSP site?
No Response!
11. What are the negative results for adminstrators in setting up or maintaining an IFHOSP site?
No Response!
12. What are other important issues in IFHOSP?
No Response!
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Generated On: 27 Sep 2002