The future of ZDoom, GZDoom, and QZDoom, and this site.

[Accensus]

I believe it would be a good idea to have a roadmap where features are marked when they are completed.

Example:
- Add bugtracker.
- Merge forums.
- Step 3.
- ???
- Profit!

Easier to track changes that way and prevents mass head scratching with the obligatory "so what's changed??" question.

[Graf Zahl]

Step one: Sort out the server issues. Don't forget that zdoom.org needs to be migrated off Randi's webspace before we can take care of the rest. Some of the things that were already underway were certainly thrown off the rails by this sudden announcement.

[Tormentor667]

On the one hand that would certainly be nice, but considering the added bandwidth requirements it may be a bit problematic.
Since you seem to have more experience here, what would be the annual costs of a decent webspace solution for all this? Maybe it could be financed with a few donations, but this probably won't work completely for free.

Well, if there is interest from your side, I would offer hosting the whole forum and site on my webhost server. I have unlimited bandwidth and unlimited webspace so there wouldn't be any additional costs at all, neither for you nor for me. Donations would be optional.

With the Auth-Code, the zdoom.org domain could be directly attached to the webhost and everything would run as usual, it would be just hosted on my server. The good thing about it would be that it's an easy task for me to develop a nice frontend on my own server that'd come in handy.

[Accensus]

We need this. But most importantly, host it on an active person's webspace. In this case, Torm. You all know that the most infuriating thing is the lack of communication on important matters. Let's not make the ZDoom development mistakes of miscommunication.

[Graf Zahl]

On the one hand that would certainly be nice, but considering the added bandwidth requirements it may be a bit problematic.
Since you seem to have more experience here, what would be the annual costs of a decent webspace solution for all this? Maybe it could be financed with a few donations, but this probably won't work completely for free.

Well, if there is interest from your side, I would offer hosting the whole forum and site on my webhost server. I have unlimited bandwidth and unlimited webspace so there wouldn't be any additional costs at all, neither for you nor for me. Donations would be optional.

With the Auth-Code, the zdoom.org domain could be directly attached to the webhost and everything would run as usual, it would be just hosted on my server. The good thing about it would be that it's an easy task for me to develop a nice frontend on my own server that'd come in handy.

Best contact Eruanna about this. She's the one in charge right now.

[Tormentor667]

I will do

[Rachael]

On the one hand that would certainly be nice, but considering the added bandwidth requirements it may be a bit problematic.
Since you seem to have more experience here, what would be the annual costs of a decent webspace solution for all this? Maybe it could be financed with a few donations, but this probably won't work completely for free.

Standard shared hosting plans are about 20-30-ish euros a year, going up or down depending on currency fluctuations.

Currently Randi's Linode is going to cost me $240 USD a year if I keep it the whole year, although I may resize it down so that it is more manageable for me.

One thing to keep in mind: ZDoom is a high volume site. There is no way it will ever work on anything less than a VPS like what it has now. Shared hosts will, at the very least, balk at it, if not shut it down completely. And we already know that Dreamhost can't even support DRD Team right now - it is having the exact same problems that Skulltag did because it became just too active.

Back before I moved DRD Team away from Linode it used approximately 300 GB a month. ZDoom, by rough estimates, uses slightly less than that, although it also doesn't have a devbuilds site which is a good bandwidth sink right out the gate.

[Graf Zahl]

Best discuss this with Tormentor. But I think we shouldn't have problems getting those $240 per year together if Tormentor's offer doesn't work out.

[printz]

Beyond, if there is interest and need for it, I would volunteer to take care of a complete webpage for the ZDoom.org domain that covers all three ports, lots of content, screenshots, features, and whatever might be necessary to cover and to present the sourceports in a more modern fashion (e.g. something like boa.realm667.com comes to mind, it's easily maintained from an administration backend with multi-user functionality.) -- just let me know, and I'd be happy to come up with something

As long as you're not getting targeted by hackers, sure. I know for sure the Realm667 forums went through some attacks, needed a web-app (and database) replacement and for awhile was totally strange looking, with huge icons and badly scaled UI. I'm assuming you gained experience from all that, right?

EDIT: How about making zdoom.org redirect to gzdoom.drdteam.org?

[Tormentor667]

Absolutely no need to worry about anything of the mentioned concerns.

The webhost is a business account which has totally different specifications, limits and also prizes (in my case it's 25 Euros a month/300 Euros a year) including a traffic flat and 500 GB of disc space. It's not only running the Realm667 but also my business page DG Media (www.dg-media.com), the Blade of Agony webpage (which had a traffic of 800 GB in one month during the release of Chapter 1) and two more business related pages also connected to DG Media.

About the security concerns printz mentioned: Each site is running in it's own environment/directy/domain. So if it should ever happen again that the Realm667 gets hacked, it wouldn't have any influences on ZDoom (or any other page - remember the big hacking 2 years ago? DG Media still ran without any flaws). So also regarding this, there is no need to worry about anything.

Don't get ne wrong, this is still an offer, nothing has to happen I just want to give something back where I can and support our community. I really would like to realise a strong webpage that showcases the sourceports, its benefits and serves as a good information ground for people new and already used to the engine. And I also think that - regarding the costs - I could serve as a very good alternative to an own hoster that is 20-30 $ per month Beyond, I am an active member here, so if anything doesn't work out, it's easy to contact and bash me to get things working

[Rachael]

I won't lie, Torm - that is a really enticing offer. But before you even made it, I got the ball rolling on getting this hosted by MancuNET. No matter what, I want both this site and DRD Team to stay in the hands of the Doom community, and you certainly would be a good choice for that. But the downside to that is, I tend to plan things out in advance and I did not anticipate this offer. Even if I was planning impromptu, I would have to weigh the benefits of each host.

The other thing to consider is this arrangement I have with Mike is probably going to cost him some money. It might be a relief for him to let you host it. Is DG Media owned wholly by you? I just would prefer a business that has some permanency if I were to decide to go that route. I also do not ever want to wake up one day and suddenly find both ZDoom and DRD Team vanished with no backups because the business couldn't afford to pay its bills.

[Tormentor667]

Nothing to excuse for, this offer from me came out of nowhere DG Media is my company, so there is nothing to be worried about. And as I said: No additonal costs are involved, but, PayPal donations are optional and I wouldn't be sad if people do that

If you still want to stick to Mike's offer, I'd still offer you to create an apropriate frontpage for the forum and wiki, no matter if it's hosted on MancuNET or on DG Media (we just need to make sure that the technical base on MancuNET is there, meaning a MySQL DB for the site and at least PHP5.5)

[Rachael]

That's probably going to be managed by Mike unless he gives me my own VPS server (which I don't know if he will or not).

I wish he were more active here because I think he'd have something to say about this. Next time I email him I will mention this thread and your posts.

[Tormentor667]

Sure thing, I am fine with any solution - still it is an affair of the heart for me, so my hosting/frontpage would be the solution I am more happy with Anyway, just keep me informed. If there is anything I can do or help with, just let me know. The Realm667 is running now for 17 years, so I guess I am up for the challenge.

[Graf Zahl]

If I may say something about it, one thing we shouldn't do is go for the cheapest solution because it's cheap. The investment into a decent webhost really should be worth something to everyone involved here. I'd rather pay for a good server than trying some second grade solutions, and that includes having full administrative control over the whole thing.

What I absolutely do not want, if I am the main developer here is having to deal with a website where I constantly have to ask others to do things. If it turns out like that I'd rather buy my own webspace.