Re: [Flightgear-devel] buying server bandwidth (was: mpserver02 close down)

[Reagan Thomas]

  On 10/7/2010 10:38 AM, Curtis Olson wrote:
>
>
> I haven't researched this, but I wonder what a fair price would be to 
> rent a dedicated linux server with an unmetered 100mbit connection to 
> the internet?  Would that be sufficient to run a good multiplayer server?
>

Curt,

I think a single commercial sponsor with a deep interest (by inclination 
and business model) in flying would be best.  The sponsor would agree to 
pay for the server & bandwidth in exchange for mention on the web site 
(prominently or certainly distinguishable as separate and unrelated to 
any google ads that appear there now).  Perhaps mention on the 
multiplayer map also.

You would probably have to actively seek out such a sponsor.  One 
suggestion would be an outfit like Sporty's (sportys.com).  They appear 
to have a real-life affiliate network of flight schools geared toward 
serving people who want to enter aviation.  I once ordered their free 
"Your First Hour of Flight" DVD... and soon got correspondence from a 
local flight school seeing if I wanted to get started ;)

With FlightGear being a low cost way for someone to "get flying", I 
think a company such as Sporty's would find sponsoring FlightGear an 
appropriate use of marketing funds.

Thanks,

Reagan

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] buying server bandwidth (was: mpserver02 close down)

[Curtis Olson]

On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 5:33 PM, Csaba Halász wrote:

> Side note:  Sabin has been waiting for an official
> mpserver.flightgear.org address since may for the FREE mp server he
> started in Kansas. Which, being in the USA, could have taken much of
> the stress from Pigeon's 02. Unfortunately even though we had some
> discussion and even Curt offered to make the necessary DNS changes,
> nothing happened. Can we please finally assign a DNS to his FREE
> server? With 02 gone, and plenty of USA folks set up for using it, I
> (yet again) suggest to make the new server take over 02.
>

Hi Csaba,

This obviously fell through the cracks or there was a communication break
down somewhere, I see there was a discussion thread in my archive, but it
wasn't clear to me what the final decision was for renaming mp servers.  If
someone wants to make the final call, let me know and I can update the dns.

If something has dropped off the radar screen for months, please feel free
to send me a reminder.

Just to be clear, I am waiting for someone to layout what the mpserver dns
changes should be and then I can make them.

Thanks,

Curt.
-- 
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http://www.flightgear.org -
http://www.flightgear.org/blogs/category/curt/
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Re: [Flightgear-devel] buying server bandwidth (was: mpserver02 close down)

[fierst42]

My two cents:

Subscriptions need bookkeeping and decent administration of valid user 
accounts etc.. While there might be someone out there that is willing to 
do this task at this point in time, that will end some day. It will 
probably be hard to find volunteers for this task.

I am in favor of donations, where fund raising is organised every year 
or so. A budget for server and bandwidth of $1 devided by 500 
donators would amount to $20. Heck, I would be willing to pay for 
several years in advance for that kind of money if the payment method is 
suitable.
I would be surprised if there would be difficulties in raising enough money.

m



Op 07-10-10 23:36, willie schreef:
>
> So Donations or subscriptions?
>


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Re: [Flightgear-devel] buying server bandwidth (was: mpserver02 close down)

[Gary Neely]

On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 6:28 PM, Stuart Buchanan  wrote:
>> We could certainly explore the donation route.  I'm doing a little bit of 
>> research to try to determine what the realistic costs would be to setup a 
>> dedicated server to run a multiplayer system.  That will give us a better 
>> idea what we need to shoot for.
>
> I agree that we need some real numbers before we can say what is realistic.
>
> I'm firmly of the opinion that whatever we do has to be completely voluntary. 
> I don't really like the idea of a subscription based MP server. Neither do I 
> like an advertising supported model. It feels like a pain to manage.
>
> The model I do like is one that seems to work for a jazz station I listen to: 
> KCSM. They have fundraising drives every six months or so to cover their 
> running costs. People give what they can but there is no obligation and no 
> set amount.
>
> I like the idea of outsourcing the collection if we can find a suitable 
> organisation but I suspect there are enough people with moderately deep 
> pockets that it could be managed informally. The fewer actual donations, the 
> less admin is required.     I'd be willing to contribute £100 a year if 
> someone else matched me. A couple more pledges like that and I'm sure we'd 
> get there. I've known many people on this list long enough that I'd be happy 
> to send them that amount of money on trust.
>
> -Stuart



I need to spend some time following-up what Curt has suggested, and I
would agree that no-money options are always welcome, but if decisions
should result in a donation or fund-drive solution, then I'll pledge
to match Stuart's £100 contribution.

-Gary aka Buckaroo, Windows user.

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] buying server bandwidth (was: mpserver02 close down)

[Csaba Halász]

On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 9:13 PM, Curtis Olson  wrote:
> Gary and Stuart,
> We could certainly explore the donation route.  I'm doing a little bit of
> research to try to determine what the realistic costs would be to setup a
> dedicated server to run a multiplayer system.  That will give us a better
> idea what we need to shoot for.

Not sure why suddenly everybody wants to pay for things :)
As far as MP is concerned we seem to be having enough volunteers to
keep the system running. With 02 finally gone, MP will even work
properly for a change (I have suggested multiple times to rename or
discontinue it because it was causing more harm than it was useful). I
am not aware of any other problems or mp server admins saying they
can't keep things running due to missing funding. (It is funny how
most servers are in Europe, though.)

Side note:  Sabin has been waiting for an official
mpserver.flightgear.org address since may for the FREE mp server he
started in Kansas. Which, being in the USA, could have taken much of
the stress from Pigeon's 02. Unfortunately even though we had some
discussion and even Curt offered to make the necessary DNS changes,
nothing happened. Can we please finally assign a DNS to his FREE
server? With 02 gone, and plenty of USA folks set up for using it, I
(yet again) suggest to make the new server take over 02.

Current MP servers only need one thing: bandwidth. It is widely known
that our MP protocol is horribly inefficient with bandwidth usage. I
would definitely try to fix that before asking for donations for
better servers. That said, you can basically pick the cheapest virtual
server that has good network speed and unlimited bandwidth. (By the
way, Stefan, I would never use an evil bandwidth-throttling-type
unlimited service, let alone recommend one!) Appropriate VPS servers
can be had for as low as $20 per month.

So much about MP. FGCom needs even less resources, the main problem
there was missing installation instructions but thanks to Thomas and
Willie that is sorted out. That leaves things like main site, wiki,
mapserver, terrasync.  Money could also be used for other things such
as costs related to conferences. I am not against setting up donation
collecting infrastructure for those but not built into FG (or even its
installer - although I don't particularly care for windows users LOL).

-- 
Csaba/Jester

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] buying server bandwidth (was: mpserver02 close down)

[Stuart Buchanan]

> We could certainly explore the donation route.  I'm doing a little bit of 
> research to try to determine what the realistic costs would be to setup a 
> dedicated server to run a multiplayer system.  That will give us a better 
> idea what we need to shoot for.

I agree that we need some real numbers before we can say what is realistic. 

I'm firmly of the opinion that whatever we do has to be completely voluntary. I 
don't really like the idea of a subscription based MP server. Neither do I like 
an advertising supported model. It feels like a pain to manage. 

The model I do like is one that seems to work for a jazz station I listen to: 
KCSM. They have fundraising drives every six months or so to cover their 
running costs. People give what they can but there is no obligation and no set 
amount. 

I like the idea of outsourcing the collection if we can find a suitable 
organisation but I suspect there are enough people with moderately deep pockets 
that it could be managed informally. The fewer actual donations, the less admin 
is required. I'd be willing to contribute £100 a year if someone else 
matched me. A couple more pledges like that and I'm sure we'd get there. I've 
known many people on this list long enough that I'd be happy to send them that 
amount of money on trust. 

-Stuart
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Re: [Flightgear-devel] buying server bandwidth (was: mpserver02 close down)

[willie]

On 07/10/10 21:47, Hal V. Engel wrote:
> On Thursday, October 07, 2010 12:13:46 pm Curtis Olson wrote:
>> Gary and Stuart,
>>
>> We could certainly explore the donation route.  I'm doing a little bit of
>> research to try to determine what the realistic costs would be to setup a
>> dedicated server to run a multiplayer system.  That will give us a better
>> idea what we need to shoot for.

I floated the idea on the multiplayer section of the forum.
http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=9651
  We were talking specifically about a sub for the FGCom server that I 
persuaded my friend to donate. That donation of server and bandwidth is 
good until it begins to impact on his business and we simply floated the 
idea as a what-if. BTW we expect to be able to use this FGCom server for 
at least a year, possibly indefinitely, that's why I announced it as a 
medium term solution. However I think the results are applicable to 
FGCommunity servers in general.
So Donations or subscriptions?
If the subscription is mandatory, what minimum service would be expected?
What is affordable?

Some of the replies are instructive.

Some guy thinks $20/month is reasonable.
For many people that's simply unaffordable. Some want it to continue for 
free of course. Its been free so far, why should that change?
Some people don't use PayPal and would have difficulty sending money(in 
any form) beyond their national borders.

  My own thoughts are that ~$15 every three months should cover FGCom, 
MPservers, MPmap and a 99.9% uptime. Not only that but a decent ToS  and 
User Agreement that would mean we'd be kicking spammers and motormouths 
as well.
That means its a full time job for 2-3 people and these costs need to be 
factored in, so we'd need several thousand subscribers to make it work. 
Or we do it for a lot less and skip the moderation.

I definitely agree that some form of FlightGear Foundation is required 
to cover server costs and help with hardware for developers, pay for the 
BDFL to get to conferences ;-> etc etc

For now, I think Curt's idea about opencandy is well worth looking at. 
Donations are all very well but Id hate to try to guarantee any level of 
service and just hope donations come in.

I'd be interested to see the demographics but I think most users and 
developers are now based outside the US so any Foundation will need to 
fully reflect the international nature of the project.


-- 
Best Regards
Willie Fleming

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] buying server bandwidth (was: mpserver02 close down)

[Nathanael Rebsch]

Curtis Olson wrote:
> Gary and Stuart,
>
> We could certainly explore the donation route.  I'm doing a little bit 
> of research to try to determine what the realistic costs would be to 
> setup a dedicated server to run a multiplayer system.  That will give 
> us a better idea what we need to shoot for.
>
> Don't feel like you have to talk personal donation amounts in public, 
> but since we are on the subject, what's fair or realistic to ask 
> someone to donate per month or per year for something like this?
>
> If we go the donation route, will someone have to be constantly 
> pestering everyone to get their donations in this month?  Will this be 
> an ongoing hassle trying to chase people down or drum up new donations 
> to keep the service running?  Can we expect that people would commit 
> to donating some fixed dollar amount per month in perpetuity? I'm not 
> sure I'd feel comfortable making such a promise myself.  One time 
> donations are a lot easier to get, but then we'd have to have someone 
> always hunting for more donations.
>
> What happens if we come up short in a month or a year?  Do we cancel 
> the service?  Do more begging?  What if we collect more than we need? 
>  FlightGear isn't an official non-profit which makes it harder to ask 
> for donations.  Setting up a non-profit organization would be a real 
> good idea, but that takes someone who (a) knows how to do it and (b) 
> can commit to spending the non-trivial amount of time required to 
> manage the non-profit, file the paperwork, file tax returns, whatever 
> else needs to get done.  There would be some non-trivial amount of 
> overhead in managing a non-profit which means a substantial portion of 
> donated money would go to overhead, not the intended purpose.  I'm 
> just trying to think though the various scenarios realistically.
>
> There are a lot of sticky questions or the potential to seriously burn 
> up the time of key volunteers (or their money if we come up short on 
> donations and want to try to maintain the services.)
>
> We could continue in our current mode where we try to get people to 
> volunteer their own servers or their own bandwidth (or 
> servers/bandwidth they have control over).  This can work, but as our 
> popularity and loads increase, this can be a bigger and bigger burden. 
>  Volunteer services like this work best if they can fly under the 
> radar screen and not cause a problem or show up as the primary 
> resource hog when you print out usage stats reports.
>
> So this is why I floated what I think is at least an interesting idea. 
>  Seeing if we could generate a consistent revenue trickle through 
> software ads/recommendations in our installer (i.e. www.opencandy.com 
> )  Presumably if the stream provided enough 
> funds to buy some server bandwidth, it would be relatively consistent 
> and pretty easy for a single person to manage the whole process  
> much easier than the other options.  I'm just making wild guesses at 
> costs and possible revenue right now, but if it worked out it would be 
> pretty slick, and would presumably scale with the popularity of 
> FlightGear.
>
> It's all open for discussion, and I don't want to link open-candy only 
> with paying for a multiplayer server, that's just the route my thought 
> process went through.
>
> For what it's worth, another model would be to setup a commercial 
> multiplayer server and charge people to access it, but that would 
> require a lot of infrastructure development and is probably my least 
> favorite of all the options.
>
> It would be nice if people could fly as much as they want online for 
> "free", except nothing is ever completely free so the question is who 
> is willing to pay and in what form is the payment made (donations of 
> money or servers, charge per use, having to click through a page of 
> suggested software packages when you install the software, etc.)
>
> Thinking out loud here 
>
> Curt.
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 1:10 PM, Gary Neely wrote:
>
> On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 11:51 AM, Stuart Buchanan wrote:
>
> > I'd be prepared to contribute some money for a dedicated
> MP/code/download
> > server, even if it was in the US and I wouldn't benefit personally.
> >
> > I'm sure with a bit of publicity using the newsletter we could
> get together
> > sufficient contributions. We could even offer immortality in the
> THANKS
> > file for the project, if we were feeling particularly generous.
>
>
> Just to back Stuart up, I had similar thoughts about contributions and
> use of the newsletter. I would be pleased to donate funds regularly to
> help maintain suitable MP servers. I can't speak for others, but I'm
> willing to bet there are many like-minded members of the community out
> there.
>
> -Gary aka Buckaroo
>
> 
> --
> Beautiful is writ

Re: [Flightgear-devel] buying server bandwidth (was: mpserver02 close down)

[Nathanael Rebsch]

Stefan Seifert wrote:
> On Thursday 07 October 2010 17:38:13 Curtis Olson wrote:
>
>   
>> I haven't researched this, but I wonder what a fair price would be to rent
>> a dedicated linux server with an unmetered 100mbit connection to the
>> internet? Would that be sufficient to run a good multiplayer server?
>> 
>
> One company that I can certainly recommend is Hetzner in Germany 
> (www.hetzner.de). I pay 49 Euros per month for a root server with a Core 
> i7-920, 8GB RAM and 2x750GB HDD. 100MBit/s connection with unlimited traffic. 
> Unlimited meaning 5TB/month after which speed gets reduced to 10MBit/s.
>
> They also have smaller offers like an entry server at 29 Euros per month for 
> which you get an Athlon 64, 1GB RAM, and 2 TB traffic.
>
> No, I do not work for them, but I'm a very satisfied customer who hasn't 
> found 
> nearly bang for the buck and quality anywhere else :) But if someone can 
> correct me, I'd be grateful.
>
> Stefan
>
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>   
The Problem with Hetzner occurres when you start needing more fancy 
stuff, like decent IO, decent RAID, wand to work with ESX(i), etc.
However, nowhere else will you get any server for that low price with 
those specs - sadly they let you pay for every extra something.
i am not particularly satisfied with Hetzner, and have some worries 
there may be some insiders working with non-EU cracking groups, spam 
networks and the likes.
The latency is not the greates there either, which can in some games and 
network protocols be quite crucial - i have no idea how important that 
is to FG though.

however, if there is a server floating around which merely needs 
co-locating, hetzner does that too, and then all services seem a lot 
better - e.g. ip addresses are no longer bound to a mac address, 
ordering multiple ip addresses do not require an additional charge of 15 
EUR / month for something called "Flexi-Pack" (that is the most 
rediculous thing i have ever heard of with regards to hosting plans).

if you can weigh out what is needed currently and what could be needed 
in the next, say 3 to 5 years and you believe it will patch a hetzner 
plan (by the way you can cancle contracts there on a monthly basis), 
then i can support the move.

greets
Nathanael

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] buying server bandwidth (was: mpserver02 close down)

[Curtis Olson]

Gary and Stuart,

We could certainly explore the donation route.  I'm doing a little bit of
research to try to determine what the realistic costs would be to setup a
dedicated server to run a multiplayer system.  That will give us a better
idea what we need to shoot for.

Don't feel like you have to talk personal donation amounts in public, but
since we are on the subject, what's fair or realistic to ask someone to
donate per month or per year for something like this?

If we go the donation route, will someone have to be constantly pestering
everyone to get their donations in this month?  Will this be an ongoing
hassle trying to chase people down or drum up new donations to keep the
service running?  Can we expect that people would commit to donating some
fixed dollar amount per month in perpetuity? I'm not sure I'd feel
comfortable making such a promise myself.  One time donations are a lot
easier to get, but then we'd have to have someone always hunting for more
donations.

What happens if we come up short in a month or a year?  Do we cancel the
service?  Do more begging?  What if we collect more than we need?
 FlightGear isn't an official non-profit which makes it harder to ask for
donations.  Setting up a non-profit organization would be a real good idea,
but that takes someone who (a) knows how to do it and (b) can commit to
spending the non-trivial amount of time required to manage the non-profit,
file the paperwork, file tax returns, whatever else needs to get done.
 There would be some non-trivial amount of overhead in managing a non-profit
which means a substantial portion of donated money would go to overhead, not
the intended purpose.  I'm just trying to think though the various scenarios
realistically.

There are a lot of sticky questions or the potential to seriously burn up
the time of key volunteers (or their money if we come up short on donations
and want to try to maintain the services.)

We could continue in our current mode where we try to get people to
volunteer their own servers or their own bandwidth (or servers/bandwidth
they have control over).  This can work, but as our popularity and loads
increase, this can be a bigger and bigger burden.  Volunteer services like
this work best if they can fly under the radar screen and not cause a
problem or show up as the primary resource hog when you print out usage
stats reports.

So this is why I floated what I think is at least an interesting idea.
 Seeing if we could generate a consistent revenue trickle through software
ads/recommendations in our installer (i.e. www.opencandy.com)  Presumably if
the stream provided enough funds to buy some server bandwidth, it would be
relatively consistent and pretty easy for a single person to manage the
whole process  much easier than the other options.  I'm just making wild
guesses at costs and possible revenue right now, but if it worked out it
would be pretty slick, and would presumably scale with the popularity of
FlightGear.

It's all open for discussion, and I don't want to link open-candy only with
paying for a multiplayer server, that's just the route my thought process
went through.

For what it's worth, another model would be to setup a commercial
multiplayer server and charge people to access it, but that would require a
lot of infrastructure development and is probably my least favorite of all
the options.

It would be nice if people could fly as much as they want online for "free",
except nothing is ever completely free so the question is who is willing to
pay and in what form is the payment made (donations of money or servers,
charge per use, having to click through a page of suggested software
packages when you install the software, etc.)

Thinking out loud here 

Curt.


On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 1:10 PM, Gary Neely wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 11:51 AM, Stuart Buchanan wrote:
>
> > I'd be prepared to contribute some money for a dedicated MP/code/download
> > server, even if it was in the US and I wouldn't benefit personally.
> >
> > I'm sure with a bit of publicity using the newsletter we could get
> together
> > sufficient contributions. We could even offer immortality in the THANKS
> > file for the project, if we were feeling particularly generous.
>
>
> Just to back Stuart up, I had similar thoughts about contributions and
> use of the newsletter. I would be pleased to donate funds regularly to
> help maintain suitable MP servers. I can't speak for others, but I'm
> willing to bet there are many like-minded members of the community out
> there.
>
> -Gary aka Buckaroo
>
>
> --
> Beautiful is writing same markup. Internet Explorer 9 supports
> standards for HTML5, CSS3, SVG 1.1,  ECMAScript5, and DOM L2 & L3.
> Spend less time writing and  rewriting code and more time creating great
> experiences on the web. Be a part of the beta today.
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/beautyoftheweb
> ___

Re: [Flightgear-devel] buying server bandwidth (was: mpserver02 close down)

[Gary Neely]

On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 11:51 AM, Stuart Buchanan  wrote:

> I'd be prepared to contribute some money for a dedicated MP/code/download
> server, even if it was in the US and I wouldn't benefit personally.
>
> I'm sure with a bit of publicity using the newsletter we could get together
> sufficient contributions. We could even offer immortality in the THANKS
> file for the project, if we were feeling particularly generous.


Just to back Stuart up, I had similar thoughts about contributions and
use of the newsletter. I would be pleased to donate funds regularly to
help maintain suitable MP servers. I can't speak for others, but I'm
willing to bet there are many like-minded members of the community out
there.

-Gary aka Buckaroo

--
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Re: [Flightgear-devel] buying server bandwidth (was: mpserver02 close down)

[Stefan Seifert]

On Thursday 07 October 2010 17:38:13 Curtis Olson wrote:

> I haven't researched this, but I wonder what a fair price would be to rent
> a dedicated linux server with an unmetered 100mbit connection to the
> internet? Would that be sufficient to run a good multiplayer server?

One company that I can certainly recommend is Hetzner in Germany 
(www.hetzner.de). I pay 49 Euros per month for a root server with a Core 
i7-920, 8GB RAM and 2x750GB HDD. 100MBit/s connection with unlimited traffic. 
Unlimited meaning 5TB/month after which speed gets reduced to 10MBit/s.

They also have smaller offers like an entry server at 29 Euros per month for 
which you get an Athlon 64, 1GB RAM, and 2 TB traffic.

No, I do not work for them, but I'm a very satisfied customer who hasn't found 
nearly bang for the buck and quality anywhere else :) But if someone can 
correct me, I'd be grateful.

Stefan

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] buying server bandwidth (was: mpserver02 close down)

[Stuart Buchanan]

On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 4:38 PM, Curtis Olson wrote:
> Hi Pigeon,
> Thanks for running a server all these years, it's been a big service to our
> community!
> Do you have any bandwidth statistics or estimates that you've collected over
> the years?  What kind of usage per month are we at?  As you know, serious
> bandwidth and dedicated servers start costing real money.  Do you have some
> ball park estimates of bandwidth usage, or basic server requirements to run
> a solid multiplayer system and keep up with the load?
> I haven't researched this, but I wonder what a fair price would be to rent a
> dedicated linux server with an unmetered 100mbit connection to the internet?
>  Would that be sufficient to run a good multiplayer server?
> This maybe should be introduced under it's own thread, but maybe this is
> just as good a way to segue as any ...

I'd be prepared to contribute some money for a dedicated MP/code/download
server, even if it was in the US and I wouldn't benefit personally.

I'm sure with a bit of publicity using the newsletter we could get together
sufficient contributions. We could even offer immortality in the THANKS
file for the project, if we were feeling particularly generous.

In fact taking this one stage further, one of the loading messages could
be modified to display "Thanks to .", taking a name at random from the
THANKS file...

-Stuart

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Re: [Flightgear-devel] buying server bandwidth (was: mpserver02 close down)

[Curtis Olson]

Hi Pigeon,

Thanks for running a server all these years, it's been a big service to our
community!

Do you have any bandwidth statistics or estimates that you've collected over
the years?  What kind of usage per month are we at?  As you know, serious
bandwidth and dedicated servers start costing real money.  Do you have some
ball park estimates of bandwidth usage, or basic server requirements to run
a solid multiplayer system and keep up with the load?

I haven't researched this, but I wonder what a fair price would be to rent a
dedicated linux server with an unmetered 100mbit connection to the internet?
 Would that be sufficient to run a good multiplayer server?

This maybe should be introduced under it's own thread, but maybe this is
just as good a way to segue as any ...

I was recently approached by a developer from "open candy".  They offer a
service similar in principle to google ads, but works at the windows
installer level.  After you install the intended software, a page comes up
asking if you want to install any of the additional suggested packages.
 They all default to no, so you have to opt in to install something and you
don't have any nasty surprises.  Open Candy does collect enough "non user
identifyable" stats to verify that one of the suggested packages was
successfully installed to completion.  If an end user does install a
package, we get paid some number of pennies depending on which package,
which country the user is in, and whatever other criteria open-candy decides
to use.

I'm sure we will not achieve universal consensus on whether if this is a
good idea or not, but I wanted to float the idea and get opinions and
discussion.

If it generates a revenue stream sufficient to buy some decent multiplayer
server bandwidth, fgcom bandwidth, etc. would it be worth adding this to our
default installer?

Open Candy has a web site:

http://www.opencandy.com

You can go there and see a demo movie of what this might look like to the
end user.  Open Candy would work as a plugin dll to our installer so as far
as I understand it doesn't install anything or modify anything on the user's
pc.  They do collect some information and stats, but they claim it's all
"non user identifiable" and they do list what they collect on their faq at
their web site.

On the grand scale, I think open-candy is pretty innocuous and you have to
opt in for anything extra to get installed.  If it would provide a mechanism
to buy the bandwidth we need to run good/solid multiplayer servers would it
be worth doing?

Any thoughts and comments from our developers?

Thanks,

Curt.



On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 7:03 AM, Pigeon wrote:

>
> Hi all,
>
>I'm reluctant to announce that I have to (finally) shutdown
> mpserver02 permanently.
>
>Rather than continuing to shape bandwidth and blocking IPs from
> different countries, which will only degrade the experience of FG's
> multiplay, I think it is time to simply shut it down and let other servers
> take over and do a better job.
>
>The fact that FG mpserver is now using more and more bandwidth is a
> good sign, meaning FG is getting more and more popular, and that's very
> exciting!
>
>I also apologize for not being able to give an earlier notice.
> (My) mpserver02 is already shutdown as you read this, until someone else
> takes over the and replace it. I shall leave this to other mpserver admins
> (and also Curt to update the DNS).
>
>I will continue to host mpmap02 since it uses a lot less traffic, at
> least for now ;)
>
>Sorry again, and thanks.
>
>
> Pigeon.
>
>
> --
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> Spend less time writing and  rewriting code and more time creating great
> experiences on the web. Be a part of the beta today.
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-- 
Curtis Olson:
http://www.atiak.com - http://aem.umn.edu/~uav/
http://www.flightgear.org -
http://www.flightgear.org/blogs/category/curt/
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