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posted by janrinok on Tuesday December 06, @08:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the download-your-data-quick dept.

Fosshost.org to be considered end-of-lifed.:

Fosshost.org to be considered end-of-lifed. Fosshost to be considered EOL

At this time, Fosshost is deeply sorry to announce we are no longer able to continue offering our services.

Due to circumstances outside of the control of the Fosshost volunteers, we are now in a situation where we cannot guarantee our servers will stay online, and in fact expect them to go offline shortly.

Because of this, we strongly recommend all Fosshost tenants to backup their data immediately, and migrate elsewhere as soon as possible.

As Fosshost began showing signs of failure, former volunteers and others who care deeply about the sustainability of free software have begun building alternatives; new homes for projects who had previously relied on Fosshost.

The Radix Project The Radix Project is one such initiative, founded in part by one of the original architects of Fosshost.


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  • (Score: 2) by Kell on Tuesday December 06, @10:07PM (2 children)

    by Kell (292) on Tuesday December 06, @10:07PM (#1281449)

    Hang on, is Fosshost.org to be considered end-of-lifed?

    --
    Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday December 06, @10:17PM (1 child)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 06, @10:17PM (#1281450) Journal

      Yes.
      Short version:

      Fosshost.org is EOL.
      If your data are hosted there, it is SOL.

      --
      How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
      • (Score: 1) by billbellum on Wednesday December 07, @12:40AM

        by billbellum (18539) on Wednesday December 07, @12:40AM (#1281468)

        Seems to be going around a lot recently. Almost like an anti-FOSS pandemic.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by khallow on Tuesday December 06, @10:57PM (1 child)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 06, @10:57PM (#1281454) Journal
    Well, I've run across a story [bleepingcomputer.com] that illuminates this more. Links have been removed from my quoting.

    UK-based non-profit Fosshost has been providing services to several high profile open source projects like GNOME, Armbian, Debian and Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) completely free of charge. But that will soon change as the project reaches end of life.

    As of this week various fosshost.org links are are returning 404 (not found) error messages as the service is on its way out.

    "At this time, Fosshost is deeply sorry to announce we are no longer able to continue offering our services," states a notice seen today by BleepingComputer on fosshost.org website.

    [...]

    "We are unable to pay for co-location costs, and that's why our servers will go offline as [Thomas Markey our CEO is unreachable," a purported Fosshost volunteer is seen commenting on a YCombinator Hacker News post.

    The commentator suggests that Markey, who has been unresponsive over the past six months, is the only person with access to bank accounts with funds required to operate Fosshost.

    It is worth noting that Fosshost is a Community Interest Company (CIC) formally registered with Companies House, England. As such, its management is still responsible for filing annual regulatory paperwork. Failing this, Fosshost, like any other incorporated organization, could be stricken off from the companies register with additional penalties incurred for the directors.

    The story indicates that Fosshost went under gradually over several months.

    By August, Fosshost had reached "an untenable situation with its current supplier commitments and obligations" forcing it to phase out its AArch64 as a service offering before the month ended.

    In the same announcement Fosshost stated its current management, governance and leadership team were "under review."

    By September, Fosshost had suspended its applications citing scalability issues.

    In November, maintainers reached a dead end when attempting to operate a Chicago node that was no longer accessible, bootable or recoverable.

    "Unfortunately, the current situation with the node is that we are unable to reboot it as our CEO hasn't given anyone access to do anything with the DC," a maintainer wrote at the time.

    Users were then urged to explore alternate hosting arrangements or attempt to contact Markey who was "the only one able to fix it."

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by fab23 on Wednesday December 07, @12:03AM

      by fab23 (6605) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 07, @12:03AM (#1281460) Homepage

      The whole story mention from BleepingComputer at Hacker News is Fosshost Is Shutting Down [ycombinator.com]. In the first thread there are also comments from at least two former volunteers who give some details and insights. Also some other commenters mention a few possible reasons why a person suddenly could be unresponsive or unreachable.

      I guess at least volunteer projects which give services to other projects should have a proper setup and avoid a single point of failure. In this case, more on the human side and set the business part up in a way that at least one other person, or two other people together, are able to at least continue with the daily business.

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06, @11:00PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06, @11:00PM (#1281455)

    fosshost.org? never even heard of them.

    • (Score: 3, Touché) by PiMuNu on Wednesday December 07, @09:24AM (2 children)

      by PiMuNu (3823) on Wednesday December 07, @09:24AM (#1281501)

      Given the discussions elsewhere about this site, it is nonetheless interesting and highly relevant.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Wednesday December 07, @09:30AM

        by PiMuNu (3823) on Wednesday December 07, @09:30AM (#1281502)

        For example, which of the donors has ever reviewed the accounts of SN? Who has signing powers on the bank accounts.

        Technically we hear there is a situation where we have no sysadmin apart from NCommander (coming out of "retirement" as a last desperate measure) who is able to restore from backup. Is there a similar situation financially/legally (probably) politically/community (definitely).

        Thanks again to all the volunteers who contribute, I'm not complaining at you but rather pointing out why this is relevant for those in the SN community who may have done a Whoosh.

      • (Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Wednesday December 07, @06:19PM

        by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Wednesday December 07, @06:19PM (#1281577)

        If Fosshost.org is so relevant maybe someone should have added a little bit to the summary explaining just who or what the site what it does and why those who haven't been on SN long, or just haven't ever noticed mention of it before even after years on SN, should care.

        When people just assume "everyone knows" about something and don't bother passing that knowledge on the knowledge of what that something is eventually gets lost despite "everyone" knowing about it.

        --
        "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
    • (Score: 1) by ShovelOperator1 on Wednesday December 07, @10:39AM (1 child)

      by ShovelOperator1 (18058) on Wednesday December 07, @10:39AM (#1281509)

      They were usually somewhere in the background as I remember. When You downloaded a Linux distro's disk image for example, it could come from fosshost's mirror. Or some site's resources got loaded from Fosshost's servers.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07, @02:54PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07, @02:54PM (#1281542)

        Won't really care that much as long as it's not something like this: https://xkcd.com/2347/ [xkcd.com]

        😉

  • (Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Wednesday December 07, @06:27PM

    by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Wednesday December 07, @06:27PM (#1281579)

    For those who, like myself, haven't heard of Fosshost.org before it is a site that provides free web site hosting services to open source projects.

    The site getting shut down is going to effect a number of smaller Open Source projects and their presence on the Internet.

    --
    "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
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