Opening up the hosting

[Tanax]

This might have been suggested before but as we were just discussing in the chat here at IPS, I think that you should allow members to pay for the app and host the chat yourself. Alex said that there could be problems since the script is quite load heavy and that the shared hosting packages won't handle it and perhaps even ban IPS products from their servers. I do not think that is the case. If someone is exceeding their quota, they will be notified of that, asked to upgrade their hosting package and/or temporarily suspended.


Opening up the hosting for IP.Chat is good because:

1) I know some people like to pay a larger one time payment instead of recurring smaller payments. The IP.Board payments are perfect, you pay for the product and can have it as long as you wish. Your active licence will expire in 6 months and you will have to renew in order to recieve further updates but are free to use the board with an inactive licence.

2) People won't be forced to pay to have the service going. They don't have to renew their licence, they can still run the later version of IP.Chat. This is not possible in the current situation. I know you have the 5 free users free option, but let's be honest, that's just so that people can try it out and get a feel for if they need the IP.Chat. 5 users is nothing so they are still indirect being forced to pay up to use it. Any community that is using IP.Board are going to have more than 5 users(or get more than 5 users if they are still a newly formed community). This whole thing is inconsistant with all of your other apps and like Matt said, inconsistancy causes people to lose trust in something.

If it was to be added then it must be a global thing otherwise it's useless.

With interface devices, they need to be consistent or you lose your user's trust. For example, if this forum showed the topic starters posts as a different colour but another forum did not, you would soon stop trusting it as a device to highlight the original poster.

Regarding the matter of that shared hosting won't be able to handle it; Let us admins be able to put our own restriction on how many users can be in the chat at any one time? I'm sure that we can ask our hoster to lookup how many users their specific hosting package will be able to handle. Either they stick with that, or they upgrade their hosting package, or they can just click back to host on IPS - yes, IPS. IPS should still offer the hosting option, I'm just saying that it should be AVAILABLE to host it yourself for those who wants it.

[chopin]

Also some of us may want the sense of ownership. If we have very large chatrooms going on, we don't want it to be on your server, we would want it to be on OUR server so we have control. Some of us want to brand our websites and have complete control (as to modify the chat to our own liking, guarantee continued chat hosting, etc). Hosting on a server we don't own gives us insecurity. Although I realize this is just a chat, and not a storage of permanent information, I would just feel safer knowing I have control over the intellectual property, because what if you discontinue your chat product, and we run a very successful set of chatrooms? Then we are out of luck.

[Dean P]

Then buy it? There is the option. :P

[Tanax]

Then buy it? There is the option. :P

Where is that option?

[Dean P]

If you buy the IP.Chat licence you would be able to install it on your community hosting plan just like any other application. That way, even if they discontinue IP.Chat, you'll have it. Whilst you're with community hosting, without a licence, you're going to be limited. :) Technically while you're hosting with them, everything that is yours, is their's too. It's only rented space and software at the end of the day.

Oh, I was replying to Chopin's post.

[Tanax]

If you buy the IP.Chat licence you would be able to install it on your community hosting plan just like any other application. That way, even if they discontinue IP.Chat, you'll have it. Whilst you're with community hosting, without a licence, you're going to be limited. :) Technically while you're hosting with them, everything that is yours, is their's too. It's only rented space and software at the end of the day.

Oh, I was replying to Chopin's post.

But you can't buy the IP.Chat license and host it yourself.
Oh I see, you didn't quote so I didn't know.

[Snatty]

I agree with this but I would rather see it opened to more options. I would love to pay a one time fee (or even a 6 month fee) to have IP.Chat that integrates with a IRC server instead .

[Aleco]

I agree with this, what if something goes wrong with ISPs server. Customers will be the ones having to wait for the fix, and chat will be offline. The big issues rarely happen, but you never know.

[Tanax]

I agree with this but I would rather see it opened to more options. I would love to pay a one time fee (or even a 6 month fee) to have IP.Chat that integrates with a IRC server instead .

That is also one option that should be supported.
Basically in your ACP you should have (currently) 3 options.
- Host the chat locally
- Integrate it with IRC
- Host the chat on IPS
- - Put in an active licence key for hosting on IPS

The hosting on IPS should cost like the way it does now only that we won't be forced to do that. With these options we can either host the chat ourselves which is great because we don't have to rely on anyone else but our own server. If our server goes down, then so does the chat, but the website will go down aswell so it doesn't really matter anyway if the chat goes down. Or you can host it with IRC or IPS.

Really, the option is ours at least.

I agree with this, what if something goes wrong with ISPs server. Customers will be the ones having to wait for the fix, and chat will be offline. The big issues rarely happen, but you never know.

Exactly, this is also a reason.

[Tanax]

Anyone else??

[bfarber]

As we have stated in various topics and blog entries - we do not have any plans to make Chat a locally hosted application at this time. We do not feel this fits in with our vision for the service/software, and for the majority of our customers we feel this would be an unusable solution anyways. I'm sure some customers could handle the traffic and load that such a service would place on their systems, but we cater to the majority, and the majority would not be able to utilize such a product.

[chopin]

Bad business model. I bet you'd make a lot more money allowing users to make a one time, but more expensive purchase of this product. All smart webmasters want to own their data, not have it hosted on someone else's server. Bad business move by IPB in this respect.

[bfarber]

I would hardly call it a "bad business move". I'm pretty sure the management have weighed both possibilities and have determined which options make the best business sense. :)

If you wish to use a different chat package that allows for such functionality you're certainly free to. We have no intentions of allow IP.Chat to be "self-hosted" at this time, primarily due to technical reasons. We are being forthright with this information so that you can make an informed decision.