huth wrote:Sorry for the provocative question
Actually, thanks for asking.
huth wrote:is Tuxfamily slowly fading away?
Yes, it is. You are absolutely correct.
huth wrote:So may I ask: What's up? Has the motivation gone?
It is fair to say most of the motivation is gone. Absolutely everything got old: people, machines, datacentres, architecture, services. Everything.
Well, people are not that old. But they moved to other projects.
And even if there were 10 brilliant engineers with too much time on their hands to take care of TuxFamily, the cold harsh truth is that the relevance of TuxFamily (an old-school mutualised hosting platform with no way to "scale" beyond a few dozen physical machines) in the era of cloud-based computing is negligible.
For years, there has been ad hoc effort to keep TuxFamily running. For instance, recently, there has been some significant effort to move machines out of a failing datacentre. But as you mentioned yourself, that is not enough.huth wrote:Or is it just a temporary low that will hopefully be solved soon?
Though there might be some more ad hoc fixes here and there, the trend is clear: TuxFamily is currently walking down and into its tomb.
Are there any ways to help (e.g. donations?)?
Actually, yes, there are ways to help. It may sound a little sad to our most ancient hostees, but the truth is that the best things to do are:
1. move your project out of TuxFamily: look for alternative hosters, ponder whether you really need this service or that option, decide if you still want to go 100% free or if you can afford to pay a little, etc.
2. write about it, either here or outside TuxFamily, so other remaining hostees get a list of suggestions.Theoretically, there should have been a gentle e-mail to inform hostees that the TuxFamily platform is no longer what it used to be and that it is time to move. Ideally with a bunch of recommendations (alternatives, what to expect in terms of services these days, etc.). This was discussed but, for various reasons, not implemented.
Well, Im a bit surprised, even sad, to read out that
I discovered tuxfamily in... 2021.
I understand (a bit) about what this project was, eg free hosting for websites related to opensource software, etc.. the "linux" world. I found this initiative interesting.
And it reminds me two things :
-a. if I didnt knew about it, it would finish like the 9/11 (i know..) theory :
"it would have to disappear to make me know it's existence"
that happened to several nerds reading NextInpact when they relayed the Free-IX Interconnection Point in the beginning of the 2010. Exactly like me when the 9/11 happened, I didnt knew it exists. Almost the same happened to me if I wouldnt had done a research about hosting initiatives.
-b. Having several very small needs about futures website projects (blog, forum..) I thought in November to get hosted at tuxfamily.. but project was still not totally clear, and contacting tuxfamily, by email or IRC, why not but you will have to wait for the answer ;)
problem is :
if tuxfamily dies tomorrow, almost nothing rests :
-only few people noticed or knows that Free/Iliad ISP free-hosting-service is now reserved only to freebox subscribers, and might close in ten years (they did so for orange/sfr/byg) because their CEO replied me "it costs a huge fortune"
-other solution was : maybe alwaysdata, whom provides 100MB for little websites ; everything looks right in their offer BUT (this BUT is extravageous), you might connect to your FTP webinterface (even not the CMS administration where you write blogs etc), you have to connect to it every three months, if not after three month they disable your website and tell you "in three month we will have to delete your data" even if GPRD says user is master of it's data, not provider. Means if you forget your website during 6 consecutive months, you will have to get your own backup.
-i tried many host providers, even in europe, some of them requiring javascript just to load a blog, but if you have others idea..
If anyones knows a 100% free website hoster, in France, eg for people whom can't afford for low price, dont hesitate to tell (i know lof ot people who go to blogspot/tumblr because they can't have expenses for it), who doesnt requires a regular login (free/iliad permit this)
just wondering, why not transfer tuxfamily to a sort of chatons associations?
https://chatons.org