🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991Jun20.070516.683@spectrum.CMC.COM> lars@spectrum.CMC.COM (Lars Poulsen) writes:
   One possible option would be for the Internet Society to sponsor an
   archive registration facility. Maybe each of the IETF task forces can
   identify valuable programs that  need to be archived, with mirrored
   servers on each continent, available for NFS mounting as well as
   anonymous FTP. It should be worth $50 for each site to have access to
   good easily  accessible archives instead of having to keep disk space
   for everything in our own space.

Let me do some calculation.  (Of course, some of these numbers may be
off -- I'd like to see how other people think it can be organized.)

First off, it's going to take at least 6 people to run the
organization.  For the first few years, it will take at least 3
programmers and 3 administrators.  Remember, there are 15,000 (to
quote somebody) programs out there, and each one needs to be
catalogued, at least minimally.  Also, since it is a for-pay service,
somebody has to handle payment and bookkeeping.  That will cost
something like $600,000 per year.

And then there's advertising costs -- and it's going to be hard to
advertise it over the Internet, because the Internet doesn't like
money-grubbing.

And there's the cost of maintaining the system's computer, with its
connection to the Internet.

And there has to be a way to limit access to the archives to those
people who have paid for the service -- otherwise there's no incentive
for people to subscribe.

OK, so maybe the total budget is $700,000 per year.

Now, how many sites can we get to sign up?  If we're extremely lucky,
and spend a lot on advertising, maybe 1000 will sign up the first
year.  That puts subscriptions at $700/year.  If you start with 100
sites, subscriptions have to be $7000/year.

Dale Worley		Compass, Inc.			worley@compass.com
--
I'm a politician -- that means I'm a liar and a cheat.  And when I'm not
kissing babies, I'm stealing their lollypops. -- "The Hunt for Red October"