HDCP - New HostBill Community Development Project

[tallship]

I decided that this is the most likely place to post regarding this idea, since it is a development project, and because it effectively makes all of us participating in this community project developers.

Perhaps a different acronym will come up lol, but HCDP (Hostbill Community Development  Project) should suffice for now i think.

The notion of commissioning 3rd party development of hostbill modules/plugins/addons (same difference really) and making them available to all of us here has been brought up repeatedly - the notion of which has been bantered about at length, and yet I'm going to step up to the plate here and make the actual proposal:

   
• That we form an HCDP BoD and Steering Committee from amongst ourselves to manage this project in a not for profit way
• That we incorporate a method, such as PayPal, etc., for accepting donations for various development aspects of the HCDP's software project goals
• That we incorporate one of the prominent affiliate systems already in place for the paid distribution of software developed on behalf of the HCDP
• That all software commissioned, developed and released under the tutelage of the HCDP be released as completely open source, under the Affero GPL, Artistic, or other suitable free, open source license
• That ownership of all copyrights pertaining to HDCP commissioned software be retained by the HDCP, until such time as the HDCP deems it necessary or preferable to transfer those copyrights to RMS and the FSF
• That the charges levied upon users who download the software from affiliate based distribution sites, who haven't monitarily contributed to it's development, be set at $15.00 for each copy distributed by the HDCP, as allowed by the GPL and other licenses in recouping the costs of distributing and making the free software available.
• That those of us who pool/contribute funds to the HCDP in advance for the commissioning and development of this software have the distribution fees waived for the initial and all future releases of those particular software modules.
• That all monies received by the HDCP from the proceeds of its software catalog be directly funded back into the development of more free modules to be commissioned by the HDCP.
• That the HDCP not concern itself with whether other people offer this software, once acquired by them, for free, whether altered, forked, or otherwise modified or not - after all, it is in fact free software.
• That we encourage anyone performing forks, modifications, and improvements to the code to offer their changes back to the community

There is no reason why this cannot, or should not, be wildly successful in delivering quality 3rd party modules we need. The development personnel engaged by the HDCP will effectively be project members of our collectively companies when necessary, so as to provide them access to whatever dev.hostbillapp.com docs, etc., they need.

Some of us have development copies of the HostBill software already, and this should facilitate greatly the development cycle under legally allowable 3rd party development of the HDCP modules - it should remain (at least for the foreseeable future) that only pre 4.6.0 HostBill owners will be permitted to be BoD, steering committee members, or fulfill active manager roles in the HDCP, for reasons of compliance with HostBill software licenses. 

There is no shortage of good, quality developers out there willing and wanting to fulfill this market of ours, those developers will be more than happy to provide direct tech support of HDCP sofware directly to end users, as per whatever terms the HDCP dictates as part of the terms of the contracts under which we engage those developers.

As far as being, Official, it costs less than a hundred bucks to form a non-profit corp in many US States. I believe it's less than 80 in GA, for example, and anyone can be an agent (providing an address for service). Any other state is equally acceptable, as long as it is cheap, since this corp is only used for setting up a bank account under which to receive and disperse funds related to our non-profit activities - we don't even need to bother w/jumping through the hoops for 501c3 status either - that only provides for tax deductible donations, which we don't need to concern ourselves with.

Initially, We would need, as part of the corporate charter, a pres (CEO), a sec'y (VP), and a treasurer (CFO) - I recommend a BoD of five, including those three, to either designate/appoint members to a steering committee, or actually serve as the steering committee themselves. The BoD and steering committee would elect a chairman, alternate, and sec'y from amongst their respective members for the purpose of presiding over the meetings and the recording of minutes.

It doesn't even have to be so official if we don't desire, but it' much more simple than it appears (literally two pieces of paper, and filing fee, and three names to put down on on that paper). Many organizations on extreme shoestrings even do this and accept donations w/o any formal incorporation - the notion of a requisite entity that manages, collects the monies and redistributes those proceeds back into future projects goes w/o saying though.

The HDCP could derive it's software goals right here from the users of this forum - probably the best place to evaluate and determine what all of us HostBill owners most need for our software

Your thoughts, Comments? Volunteers?

Thanks

[thetrusteeco]

Everything you've suggested looks great TallShip.

I'd like to participate to some degree, not sure at what level.  I love what works in HostBill, but there are core issues I need fixed by KBKP before I'd want to commit to much.

1 Question that should be of interest to many: Are foreigners allowed to participate in a US NPC as officers?

I'd also suggest that we start a list of potential mods that people want, and if Lawrence doesn't object, a HCDP Childboard where we can Poll interest in modules.

[Lawrence]

I really like this idea. I'm going to get back to this post with a few things when I finish up a couple of tasks.

edit

I'd give you another like, but unfortunately I too am restricted to 1 per hour.

[UCG_Keith]

OUTSTANDING concept!!!!

In fact, I have been discussing with the "third-party" denial concept that HB is attempting to enforce and a true work around to it would be those that want a custom module would have to be part (member) of a group (organization) that would contract with a developer as a contracted laborer (IRS 1099 staff) to perform the task.  Once the module is created all members of the group have the perpetual rights to that module for their "personal" or "company" use but would not have the right to redistribute it outside the "organization".

I am in, please let me know what my organization can assist in. 

Cheers
Keith

[UCG_Keith]

   
• That we form an HCDP BoD and Steering Committee from amongst ourselves to manage this project in a not for profit way
• That we incorporate a method, such as PayPal, etc., for accepting donations for various development aspects of the HCDP's software project goals
• That we incorporate one of the prominent affiliate systems already in place for the paid distribution of software developed on behalf of the HCDP
• That all software commissioned, developed and released under the tutelage of the HCDP be released as completely open source, under the Affero GPL, Artistic, or other suitable free, open source license
• That ownership of all copyrights pertaining to HDCP commissioned software be retained by the HDCP, until such time as the HDCP deems it necessary or preferable to transfer those copyrights to RMS and the FSF
• That the charges levied upon users who download the software from affiliate based distribution sites, who haven't monitarily contributed to it's development, be set at $15.00 for each copy distributed by the HDCP, as allowed by the GPL and other licenses in recouping the costs of distributing and making the free software available.
• That those of us who pool/contribute funds to the HCDP in advance for the commissioning and development of this software have the distribution fees waived for the initial and all future releases of those particular software modules.
• That all monies received by the HDCP from the proceeds of its software catalog be directly funded back into the development of more free modules to be commissioned by the HDCP.
• That the HDCP not concern itself with whether other people offer this software, once acquired by them, for free, whether altered, forked, or otherwise modified or not - after all, it is in fact free software.
• That we encourage anyone performing forks, modifications, and improvements to the code to offer their changes back to the community

Addressing the "free" concept, I think that each user of the module should be required to be a member of the organization.  Similar to a CoOperative.  In fact, a membership of $1, $5, etc. gives them a "ownership" of the Nonprofit; but it gives them legal access (ownership) of each module that is developed. 

It may sound strange, but in order to protect each person that has access to the modules, they need to have ownership of the module.  If they are a 0.0001% owner of the non profit; HostBill has NO legal right to restriction.

I would suggest; as an example, a membership costs $xx ($25 one time) this gives them an equal ownership (as more members are added, the percentage of ownership decreases to maintain equality) This fee could be used to (1.) maintain the corporation, (2.) purchase some "free" modules, etc.

I agree with the structure of the organization and Board of Directors.  I would also suggest an exploratory Comity that would take the suggestions of the group and investigate the cost.  If it is "viable" a vote goes out to all of the members to vote.  IF it is a majority vote the payment is collected by the Yes votes.

The area of logistic that I see is how to manage who has access to the build?  All owners or just contributors?  If All owners, then all owners would have to contribute.  If its only those that contribute, how would the access to that module controlled?

Just thinking out loud!

[Lawrence]

IF members in the organization have perpetual access to, and access to use the said modules, wouldn't new users be given access to the modules even after 4.6.x as they are part of the same entity? Wouldn't everyone be able to benefit from this even with the restrictions placed on KBKP's anti-developer policies?

[UCG_Keith]

IF members in the organization have perpetual access to, and access to use the said modules, wouldn't new users be given access to the modules even after 4.6.x as they are part of the same entity? Wouldn't everyone be able to benefit from this even with the restrictions placed on KBKP's anti-developer policies?

As long as the members are identified as "owners" then the restrictions should be negated.

For example, our company wants a vCloud Director that works and are willing to contribute.  Lets assume the cost is $1,000 for that module and only 100 members contribute; $10/member.  Are you proposing that all members have same access to it? 

If that is what you're proposing, I like it; but it would need to be written into the bylaws.  Also, each purchased module would probably need a bounty prior to the build and $xxx (amount) collected prior to the build.

[Lawrence]

I think there should be a membership fee, and access to the modules should not be limited to anyone that's paid the fees. We can arrange for chip-in projects, and anyone that contributes could be given more weight in voting on what features are implemented in said modules. I'm fine with an initiation fee of $30-$150, I think this would be fair to have access to all modules.

We could do an optional fee for downloading the modules as well, or as Tallship suggested, $15 per download which proceeds would be directed towards funding of other modules.

That's just brainstorming, I'd much rather there be a one-time fee to join and not adopt the KBKP policies on pay for all projects individually.

[UCG_Keith]

I think there should be a membership fee, and access to the modules should not be limited to anyone that's paid the fees. We can arrange for chip-in projects, and anyone that contributes could be given more weight in voting on what features are implemented in said modules. I'm fine with an initiation fee of $30-$150, I think this would be fair to have access to all modules.

We could do an optional fee for downloading the modules as well, or as Tallship suggested, $15 per download which proceeds would be directed towards funding of other modules.

That's just brainstorming, I'd much rather there be a one-time fee to join and not adopt the KBKP policies on pay for all projects individually.

I totally agree Lawrence, Tallship.  I am also brainstorming.  In fact I am in communications with a well known developer on a project we are working on and see that this could be something that the organization could use.

I like the membership fee range.  I think it should be structured fee where all members can benefit.  The download fee of $15 is a great idea for those who have not paid the bounty.  It allows for all members to have access to it at any time.

I would be interested in contributing to this in whatever manner.  I personally believe that this concept could save a portion of Hostbill and keep it useable.

[thetrusteeco]

Hey all, what happened to this thread?

TallShip, is there any progress towards incorporating?  Is the US based non-Profit corp limited to US residents.

So far I don't see a list of wanted extensions appearing so I'll start a list:

1) The Advanced Reseller module that ModulesGarden had announced plans for before KBKP made their NO3PX FUBAR (I decided we need an acronym for the No 3rd Party Extensions "Business Decision").

2) I'd like a different DNS Manager for HostBill.  The PowerDNS/cPanelDNS extension does work the way they were designed, but I don't like the design.  I don't mean the aesthetics, I mean the ordering process.  Currently no matter how we attempted to setup the DNS (tried both cPanel and PowerDNS), the customer has a section in the back-end for DNS Management, which includes both the ability to order DNS Management for another Domain within the same package, or add another DNS package.  This is the case even if the DNS is set to Free and you put in the hook to automatically use your DNS servers.  I'd rather the DNS ordering was invisible and the customer only has access to edit the DNS for a domain from that domain's management page.

I had suggested that ModulesGarden also port over their excellent DNS Manager for WHMCS to HostBill, and they had stated that they would if there was more interest from HB users, then the NO3PX FUBAR, and that was the end of that.

I have found navigating the provided DNS Manager extremely confusing, and I understand how it works. Therefore we have not made it available for our customers, even though it was one of the main reasons we bought HostBill.  If you've got the DNS Management service running as free and invisible, please post a How-To, as the documentation for this in the HostBillApp site has always been lacking IMO.

DNS Managment, the way we'd like to implement it (although we're negotiable):
I would like to have a PowerDNS cluster running and provide the customer the options in the HostBill domain management to:
- Use our DNS service
- Use your own DNS
- Point the domain to your Hosting account
- Point the domain to your cloud
- Point the domain to your server
If the customer chooses "Use our DNS Service" the Nameservers at the Registry are automatically updated via the registrar module (ex. ResellersClub) to point to our DNS servers (ex. ns1/2/3/4.mydns.tld).  If we offer multiple DNS packages the customer would get the option of choosing which one from a drop down list.  (FYI we'd like to offer multiple free DNS options because some ccTLDs demand the DNS servers are in the local country.)  After that they would have access to the PowerDNS interface.

If the customer chooses "Use your own DNS" the Nameservers option appears and they can update the nameservers listed at the registry via the domain registrar module (ex. ResellersClub).

The 2-5 options would only appear if the customer has those services.  If they have multiple of a service (ex. multiple Hosting accounts) then there would be an additional menu pop-up listing the accounts, and they would pick which service (ex. Dallas Hosting account) to point the nameservers to.  Then the nameservers would be automatically pointed to that node/hosting account via the domain module (ex. ResellersClub).

Okay, that's the end of the description of the DNS Management the way we'd like it.

What extensions do you guys want?

[UCG_Keith]

@Tallship, PM me to discuss the Non_Profit concept. I would be happy to assist in the development of the Organization and volunteer in whatever manner needed.  @thetrusteeco - I am not aware of any restrictions based on residence.  We have a client that just started a non-profit and they have a few shareholders that are located outside of the USA.

I am located in Atlanta, GA USA, and will address this question with one of our attorney clients to confirm. We have a few companies that we have incorporated in Georgia and Delaware, I personally like Delaware over Georgia because of the annual fees, Registered Agent fees and corporate taxes are lower.  Additionally, Delaware have better corporate laws protecting the organization then other states (IMHO).

Regarding a (IMHO, must have) module.  We need a module that will connect to our vCloud Director (vCD) clusters.  The one that HB developed does not work, provision, etc.  We need the vCD module to utilize the vCD pool of resources; provision the infrastructure; including but not limited to, building the vm's, assigning the IP's, configure the vShield settings, set up the VPN.  Once provisioned, it should allow the client to go to the vCD Client Portal to manage their infrastructure.  Additionally, the module should allow the user to add additional resources (RAM, CPU, datastore, etc.) from the HB Client Portal, user base, OS reloads, start, stop, refresh, terminate at the vm level.  The module should also allow Admins/system to disable/enable network connection.

[tallship]

Sorry I haven't been able to dedicate much time to participation here on the forums over the past week, I've been inundated with the vagaries of both business and technical projects and therefore will prolly limit my appearances to matters of substance here for a while - i.e., when I have a question or issue directly related to running HostBill, or wrt this thread and the associated project it looks like we're going to spawn

Just to cut to the chase...

Alrighty then!

Here's what I suggest.

http://www.legalzoom.com/non-profits/non-profits-pricing.html

I recommend we pick the $99.00 option and further eliminate costs by doing the EIN directly with the IRS HERE It's free, instant, and there's no reason to pay legalzoom or anyone else to do that for us when it's so easy. That will save $79.00 + $30.00 for a total of $109.00.

We can eliminate the registered agent fee of $159.00 too by using one of ourselves, Like Keith in  GA, Lawrence in IL I think, me in CA, or whatever state one of us is in if we incorporate there, or if you have a friend who lives in a cheap state, like Delaware or Kentucky (where the filing fees are only $8.00), for example.

I also recommend that we either go with initially just 3 BoD members, then designate a panel of contributors (the people who  collectively pay for the commissioning of the software modules. regardless, changes can be made at anytime once the non-profit corp is filed.

The 501(c)(3) filing actually occurs "After" the corporation is formed anyway, and takes quite a while for the IRS to reply with the accepted/denied status (sometimes a year or more), so an additional savings of $495.00 (quite a bit) is achieved if we opt out of that.

We don't have to do the 501(c)(3) thing either if we don't want to. And there's no taxes anyway for the first 27 mos, which the corporation wouldn't be paying anyway since it's obviously not going to operate at a loss anyway. The reason this is important to understand is because the main benefit for 501(c)(3) is for contributors - their contributions are tax deductible. The IRS filing fee is $400.00 if we expect to take in less than $10,000/yr (we would estimate that of course) or $850.00 if our initial estimates are that we will take in more than $10,000 dollars a year (Of course we wouldn't estimate this to be the case).

We can always decide on what we want to do about that status later, so paying someone 495 dollars to fill out about 25 pages of government forms when we can do that ourselves from lots of available cheatsheet examples, not to mention the additional $400 IRS filing fee... I don't recommend we go there at this time, especially since there is plenty of time to decide.

The state filing fees are, for example:

GA $140.00 total (Keith could be the Agent if we chose this state) - rather expensive IMO.
CA [/size][/size][/font][/color]

$45.00 (I could be the agent if we chose this state) - not a bad price
IL $50.00 (Lawrence, that's your state, right?) - reasonable filing fee.
Kentucky $8.00 (but we would need to know someone there to be an agent to provide an address or pay the registered agent fee).

I don't care what state we choose. Pick one, pick a cheap one if you live in that state

I don't recommend LegalZoom if we choose Delaware, since the actual filing fee in the state is only $89.00 and they charge $139
(they say because they provide an expedited service - that's hogwash - we're not pressed for time here).

Here's the actual incorporation prices, broken down by state and service provider:

[/size][/size]LegalZoom prices[/size][/font]
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• Kentucky = 99 cost + 8 filing fee + 9.95 S&H = 116.95 total
• Delaware = 99 cost + 139 filing fee + 9.95 S&H = 247.95 total
• California = 99 cost + 45 filing fee + 9.95 S&H = 153.95 total
• Illinois = 99 cost + 50 filing fee + 9.95 S&H = 158.95 total

Got another state in mind? just calc in the filing fee for that state.
For Delaware, cheaper options are available such as

[/size]incorporate.com (The Corporation Store)

   
• Delaware = 79 cost + 98 filing fee = 177 total (not including S&H)
• Kentucky = 99 cost + 8 filing fee = 107 total (not including S&H)
• California = 99 cost + 45 filing fee = 144 total (not including S&H)
• Illinois = 99 cost + 50 filing fee = 149 total (not including S&H)

You get the idea. They only charge a $79 fee for Delaware, everywhere else is $99, and I don't know why they charge $98 for the filing fee in Delaware since the Sec'y of State says it's only $89.

[/size]incfile.com[/font]
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They charge 99 per state, I dont' know why they charge yet another different filing fee for Delaware of $105 and I dont' know what their S&H fees are either.
Incfile is kind of a no-frills service that simply takes care of it without all of the major upsells you have to make sure not to buy with legalzoom and incorporate.com though.

That's the gist of it all, anyway.

Now I'll respond to the thread in general, with specifics:

@Tallship, PM me to discuss the Non_Profit concept.

Not a problem. Will do As soon as I finish this post.

@thetrusteeco - I am not aware of any restrictions based on residence.  We have a client that just started a non-profit and they have a few shareholders that are located outside of the USA.

There aren't any issues there

wrt a so-called C-Corp or S-Corp, one must be a US citizen or resident alien to be a shareholder. In the case of an LLC, such is not the case and members (as opposed to shareholders) can be of any nationality.

In the case of a non-profit, think more along the lines of an LLC - although most non-profits do not actually have members, which is something we should consider accordingly, because that is a complicated subject.

To gain or not to gain 501(c)(3) status. It's much easier and actually quite simple to obtain if the BoD are non-paid, *disinterested* parties with regards to deriving income from their activities of the non-profit - such will be our case, since, I don't think anyone here is actually interested in making money as a result of serving the non-profit corp

Also, it's much easier w/o members. Some states, including GA and CA, allow for a single member on the BoD, but the IRS would like 3. Three to five is a reasonable number and can be changed at anytime by a vote of the BoD.

To actually have members means those members have an interested stake, and makes the 501(c)(3) suspect in the eyes of the IRS. An informal membership structure where the BoD actually appoints a *body*, call it what you like, to make decisions and derive special percs (i.e., the modules for free because they are of the say, *commisioners* or *contributors* group, who decides and collectively contributes funds dedicated to the commisioning of software projects, for example), and there is nothing wrong with the non-profit deriving an income from the sale of the distribution of wares that are produced.

There are a few types of non-profits - We would be a *public benefit* foundation.

In the event that there are no actual *members*, and only a BoD and any advisory body it appoints (analagous to a membership), not ony is 501(c)(3) status easily obtainable, but people who *donate* monies to the non-profit for the purposes of it's goals (software development and distribution), are permitted to write off up to 50% of their gross income, while a non-profit with members, can generally only offer a deduction of up to 30% of the gross income of the contributor. I don't think anyone here is going to be contributing that much of their personal income lol, but the point is that contributions to the organization are tax deductible

Case in point. We formed a non-profit once for an remote control race car hobbyist club, and decided to have formal voting members instead of just a binding advisory board - it was a real hassle so we switched over to no members (from the standpoint of the non-profit, and had an advisory board instead (calling them members and charging them dues, which was fine - they just weren't listed as official members w/the sec'y of state or IRS.)

There's much more info on this here: http://www.legalzoom.com/nonprofits-guide/non-profit-membership.html and that's a good resource for answering many questions.

In fact, it's prolly easiest just to pay the $99.00 to "LegalZoom" plus the 501(c)(3) filing, plus the actual filing fees in whicever state we decide upon. Everything works according to plan when I use them or "The Company Corporation", who I used to use long before legalzoom ever existed - both are good - excellent, in fact, and I've done it by hand the hard way and used both of those services on many occasions. I prefer to use those services because they dot all the "I's" and cross all the "T's"

I suggest we have no members, just a BoD of 3 to 5, affording the simplest and easiest setup. The BoD could/should, as I pointed out before create a panel of advisors that it delegates complete authority to for all operations other than the actual corporate responsibilities that the BoD must adhere to (filing annual documents - that's pretty much it). So, the advisory board would actually run the whole show. the non-profit simply holds the copyrights on all of the software (just like any other open source (FOSS) project), collects the contributions from among the advisor or patron panel and the public, etc., and pays the developers.

Here's a quote from the link above:

Most nonprofits (especially smaller ones) do not have members, due to the additional paperwork and required formalities. Even without members, other people may still participate as advisors, patrons or contributors, but without a formal vote.

Formal vote meaning at the corporate level - something left for the BoD anyway, even though the BoD can be bound to vote as the Panel decides on matters other than the necessary legal corporate issues, etc.

To make things exceedingly simple, if a state is chosen that allows only one BoD member (those that don't typically don't permit the Pres and the Sec'y to be the same person), often a non-profit will form with a singe Board member, and that single member will immediately vote upon conclusion of the successful filing of the corporate papers to amend the articles/bylaws to added two more BoD members, or more.

For the sake of simplicity, this isn't a bad way to go since signatures from all the Board members in the forming corporation need to be collected on paper, and there isn't any downside to just adding the other board members as needed immediately following the formation.

I am located in Atlanta, GA USA,

That's a cheap state to incorporate in for such purposes. I've used GA before, and you could offer the corporate offices for the address of record and be the agent (agent does not have any official role in the corporation - the agent needs to be able to receive papers and forward them onto the BoD, etc., this is done w/proxies who charge for such services in places like Delaware).

I really don't care what state is chosen for the incorporation. I don't have any privacy concerns and I'm not going to draw any sort of compensation if I serve on the Board anyway, but Delaware and Nevada, and another state (Kentucky or something?) offer extreme privacy for corporations who do not want to divulge any information about who the shareholders, Board Members, or Corporate Officers are, etc.

Really, I couldn't care less about which state we choose, since there's no tax concerns here. The whole goal is simply to commission software development, and get it out. Those of us who pay the lion's share of the cost get a tax break. Others paying a minimum recoupment cost for the disribution through a software download portal of some sort may also be eligible, depending on how that is done - in order for them to be eligible, they would have to be paying directly to the foundation via say, PayPal.

Now, there's a bit of a snafu w/PayPal, that I've run across in the past. if you choose Non-profit when you set up the paypal account, then they'll lock the account from being able to receive donations until such time as you either provide them with the proof of non-profit status with the IRS (the 501(c)(3) status, which takes quite some time for the IRS to approve and get back to you with), or unless you call, badger, and explain to them (PayPal), that non-profit doesn't necessarily mean 501(c)(3) - we had that issue with one non-profit and had to call PayPal several times explaining that the particular non-profit was never going to be a 501(c)(3), as it wasn't part of the charter, but the corporation was non-profit nevertheless.

They eventually relented, but not without a considerable investment of time burning salaries in the form of man-hours on their part. If you just don't pick non-profit when you create the PayPal account then there's no problem - you just verify with the bank account, etc., and be done with it. In the end it makes no difference, since it isn't PayPal's place to file your taxes lol. A non-profit is still a business anyway

There's also 501(c)(6) and 501(c)( , but we should be fine with 501(c)(3), since we really are a public benefit giving software away for free, except for the recouping of the cost for distributing it (a requirement of the Affero GPL, not coporate law, BTW). Our *Cost for distributing the software can be anything we want it to be - not to be ridiculous, but it could be thousands of dollars (even though anyone could then give it away for free), considering the development costs involved in *giving/getting* it to the recipient/user.

So it's important to remember that the Non-Profit corp can charge for things without issue, but the terms of any software license is a separate issue, and in the case of the GPL, requires that we can't *charge* for the software, only recouping the costs for getting it into the hands of the recipient.

Okay the rest is rather non sequitur

Regarding a (IMHO, must have) module.  We need a module that will connect to our vCloud Director (vCD) clusters.  The one that HB developed does not work, provision, etc.

I'm not going to quote that whole thing lol. Suffice it to say I'm in complete agreement with what that module should include. it's just not right that the client shouldn't have more control over their machine (including a remote method for local console access) than just stop and start.

I also think that @trusteeco's DNS module is very important too. The one kbkp put out is a mess.

- Use our DNS service
- Use your own DNS
- Point the domain to your Hosting account
- Point the domain to your cloud
- Point the domain to your server

I don't know what @trusteeco means though, by, Point the domain to your cloud - that seems to be the same thing as saying, "Point your domain to your domain or cloud <server?>"

Anyway, One thing I've done at times is configure the default DNS servers in OpenSRS to point to HE.net's nameservers, and than tell the customers to simply register for a free account to manage all of their DNS at http://dns.he.net

Another third party provider (a newcomer many may not know about yet) is DNS4Pro and they have build a Multicast network.

And there's always no-ip.com and afraid.org and zoneedit.com - all three are also excellent and long time services.

But yes, for those of us who have our own DNS servers it just makes sense to have our clients use us as the provider, and not for extra vendor lock-in either. Because it just makes sense (I've been using that term a lot lately) to have everything available w/SSO (single sign on) for our customers, through one single portal.

For example, I've been having problems now that I've split users off between NorthTech's HostBill/WHMCS portals and http://Voice.NorthTech.US - one of our telephony VoIP portals. The customer has to sign into our HostBill or WHMCS portals to manage their PBX systems and other services, but instead of us manually d/l'ing and preparing their CDR and billing each mo, we're now beginning to send them directly to our various branded 3rd party VoIP portals for their DIDs and minutes.

It confuses the hell out of some of them, not understanding why they seem to now have two different accounts for what they consider to be one service - and they're right, but we don't have the resources to spend on developing an API access system for them that integrates seamlessly with HostBill or WHMCS as an SSO solution (yet).

Anyway, not to get off track, but I would also like to see a completely independent Colo - IPAM - Inventory/Asset Manager inclusive module too - I'm not going to pay kbkp for that and I haven't seen those magically appear in my inbox either so I'm Looking forward to a feature like that. Something like that will also be a great feature for other users who haven't picked that up from kbkp too, as a cheap alternative, and one that will be adequately maintained by developers that are actually reputable

Once this gets rocking, I would indeed like to add a module that supports several quality DID termination and origination service providers who have published APIs, so that we can include all of those services, from choosing a new phone number in real time, to up to the minute CDR and balance info on their DIDs, etc.

   

[thetrusteeco]

...
I don't know what @trusteeco means though, by, Point the domain to your cloud - that seems to be the same thing as saying, "Point your domain to your domain or cloud <server?>"
...

Sorry I didn't explain that well at all.

The "Point to my Cloud/VPS/Server" options would just be for automatically setting an A-Record (via the Register module), pointing the domain to the Cloud/VPS/Server's IP Address.  I consider this option less important than the "Point to my Hosting" account, as a Cloud/VPS/Server customer should know how to set the DNS manually.  However, many do not.

[tallship]

Okay I understand. One creates an A RR  and the other an NS.

Alt tags adequate, or the equivilant of those, say, some kind of nice popup explaining what each option is when you hover over it, really helps the customers out and cuts down on tickets too, although when it comes to DNS, nothing will completely eliminate those questions from them lol.

I also edited my post above, I'm tired, so if a mod would like to figure out what messed up the formatting in the very top of the post, then kewl, but I'm not going to mess w/it since all the text is there and speaks for itself

[Patrick]

I like his idea but being from Canada my involvement is pretty limited...so I'll observe