[portland] virtual servers for Python user groups

[Brad Allen]

What do you think of the idea of PSF funding hosted virtual servers 
for user groups? A virtual server could be managed by a volunteer 
representative of the local user group, so PSF's only involvement 
would be the initial setup and paying the ongoing bill.  This would 
give user groups a place for things like secure SVN hosting, Trac for 
project management, and user group website, etc...

In the Dallas user group, we benefit from Jeff Rush donating the user 
of his colocated server, but not every user group has someone that 
can contribute a server. Making a similar resource available to any 
Python user group could enable real action and growth.

Recently I visited the newly re-forming Python user group in 
Portland, OR, which had a meeting at BarCamp, and we discussed the 
virtual server idea. One of the members said he had an interest in 
helping PSF pilot test projects to help bolster user groups, and I 
think there would be no difficulty in finding someone to take on 
sysadmin chores for a user group virtual server.

The Portland group would be a good testbed for seeing what PSF user 
group assistance can do, because the group is in the process of 
re-establishing after a period of inactivity.  I suspect Portland 
could sustain a very large and active Python user group if they could 
get the right resources assembled.