[RFC] A platform to help people learn and host projects

Continuing the discussion from Thoughts on FOSS + Community in context of FOSS United:

A platform similar to tilde.team or segfault.net, accompanied by courses that teach the stuff using the servers could be a great way to revitalize mon.school and help under-privileged people get a place to learn things that they might not be able to with their normal systems (be it due to unsupported software, or weak hardware), and expose their creations to the wider public by giving them the ability to host it.

Another possibility pointed out by @idlethread is a code hosting + CI/CD setup which would allow them to explore more complex features of a development cycle, that are usually paid in most environments like GitHub and GitLab(.com).

The project can be more focused towards students, primarily in tier 2/3 cities.

It should be accessible via a webui (eg. segfault.net), in order to make barrier to entry less, while still allowing other methods of login that are lighter/more secure like ssh or mosh (basically ssh but with some extra capabilities that make it snappier).

They can get an environment where they’ll have enough resources and freedom, they could potentially be given their own IPv6 ip (most providers give a /64 or /48 which has literally trillions of possible combinations), and a subdomain+webserver to host their stuff.

In order to make it more appealing to the younger generation, it could possibly also include challenge-like things (or this could be integrated into mon.school; an example of this being sadservers.com).

Bigger projects that are incubated through the platform could also be given support by the foundation, in order to take it further.

In order to bring it to the masses, we can take help from organizations like VGLUG and conduct workshops in colleges, schools etc.

I can help with guiding/managing this, and have previous experience with similar projects.

Related: Privilege to Innovate

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As I had already suggested this in the previous thread. I feel this a very good idea to start. Back then I was also someone who was always in search of a free server.

As I also do a tid-bit of self hosting and system administration at FOSS United. I’m up for working on this. But before we start this project of giving a session / environment to a user on vps for free we both can sit together and discuss regarding what service, cost (as budget is very important) and management we would need. And then propose in front of Vishal and Riya. This will also help us in structuring our expenses for “server” and hosting related things. Also, in this process I would also love hearing from you about how you projectsegfault and tildevarsh were doing this.

Once the platform first release is done, and the workflow is smooth (can’t give an exact timeline, but 2-3 months from now), we can try executing this. Meanwhile, I also have another task of analyzing the usage and total costs for our AWS services. Once i’m done with it, I’ll tell you the total costs and budget we spend on hosting and servers.

We already provide hosting support for a couple of ngo’s from our frappecloud org account itself. bhasharesearch.org is one of them.

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