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FOSSRIT / fossrit.github.io

Official website for Free and Open Source Software @ RIT MAGIC Center and FOSS academia
https://fossrit.github.io
Mozilla Public License 2.0
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Consider moving fossrit.github.io => foss.rit.edu #113

Closed Tjzabel closed 4 years ago

Tjzabel commented 4 years ago

At the moment, the old FOSS website is outdated, and does not contain the current happenings with FOSS@MAGIC.

That begs the question, is it worth (or politically possible) taking over the https://foss.rit.edu domain again?

jwflory commented 4 years ago

To reply to this issue, I have two parts: what I think we should do in the best case scenario, and why we should do it this way.

Redirect foss.rit.edu to fossrit.github.io

I need @itprofjacobs to comment on who has control of the foss.rit.edu domain and how we could go about making a request to set up a redirect. If it's as easy as opening an ITS ticket as a student employee, I can go ahead with that.

The preferred outcome I see is redirecting the foss.rit.edu domain to go to our new GitHub Pages website. This domain is linked widely around the web and has a lot of search engine juice too because it's been around for the better part of the last decade. Most of the content I added in the last week actually came from the temporary FOSS site that foss.rit.edu redirects to on the MAGIC website.

Why this way?

One thing I realized the last few weeks going through all of our old content is that, sadly, RIT is not always a reliable provider of infrastructure and hosting. At one point, we had full control over the server where foss.rit.edu pointed, but that was yoinked from us some time in 2014. Now, the university is pushing hard on not using subdomains for anything.

In the interest of "future-proofing" us to any other changes that RIT makes to hosting and infrastructure, I would prefer to use a domain or public address that we can have some reliance on for lasting well into the future. Given that Microsoft acquired GitHub and there are thousands if not hundreds of thousands of open source projects using GitHub Pages, I think it is safe to say that the GitHub domain is more reliable and trustworthy than something provided by the university.

So, the best case scenario I see is getting foss.rit.edu to redirect to fossrit.github.io since it gives us a big boost in discoverability and historical links across the web that use the old URL, but it doesn't create a dependency on RIT for letting us continue using a subdomain in an era where RIT does not want any campus-affiliated group to use subdomains.

I hope this adds helpful context for why I think a redirect is the best outcome.

ct-martin commented 4 years ago

IIRC, FOSS.rit.edu is owned (per say) by MAGIC and can be pointed to any server/computer physically on campus. To redirect we'd probably have to set up a server with a header set. Also, I think RIT likes off-site redirects even less than it does subdomains, FWIW.

jwflory commented 4 years ago

I learned that this might actually be managed by ITS. I'm going to follow up with our ITS contact on Monday to see if he knows anything about it or if he can point me in the right direction.

jwflory commented 4 years ago

Fantastic news! :tada: :tada: Our friends at ITS/CIAS set up a redirect for http://foss.rit.edu to the GitHub Pages site. I tested and confirmed this was a private browser window; if you are redirected to the old site, try clearing your browser cache.

Closing as complete! :cowboy_hat_face: