[TUHS] TUHS: Maintenance, Succession and Funding

[Warner Losh via TUHS]

On Fri, Apr 17, 2026 at 7:38 PM John Cowan via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 17, 2026 at 8:17 PM Warren Toomey via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org>
> wrote:
>
> > Once we hit the yearly target, I'll turn off further contributions:
> > I am only after enough to keep the server up and running.
>
> I recommend against that.  You should allow people to pay in advance,
> especially as so many of us have fluctuating incomes nowadays.  If you
> get five years' worth of support right away, good: you or your
> successors won't need to run more campaigns for a while.
>

So I think there needs to be a balance here. We want to have enough
money to pay for
maintenance of the archive. We need there to be some flexibility in terms
of how much
we're paying, since our needs may change, especially if unexpected
artifacts come to
light where we need more storage, rates go up, etc. Yet we don't want to
have too much
money, which attracts the wrong kinds of attention. We want to have enough
reserves
to weather lean times, as interest in Unix history waxes and wanes.

So if we're so fortunate enough to raise our goal, maybe we keep it on
until we have
6 months reserve so we can some buffer should fundraising not pick up
quickly next
year. Or maybe we encourage many people to give $5 or $10 a month instead
so we
have $100ish coming in each month and fundraise when we run short.

I think that would still be in line with the goals of not raising too much,
but also ensuring
that we're able to keep the lights on.

Warner