This was just posted to the listowner's list and I thought it might be of interest to all of you who don't necessarily know what has been going on regarding the existence and future of the lists. If anyone has a problem with this post, please contact me privately. Thanks! Joyce >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Subject: Re: Sponsor (Summary & Response) Date: Thu, 04 Sep 1997 11:01:40 -0700 From: Brian Leverich <[email protected]> To: RootsWeb ListOwners <[email protected]> CC: "Dr. Brian Leverich" <[email protected]> Hi all - I'm sorta hoping this post will tie off the discussion on RootsWeb Memberships / Sponsorships, but you can of course carry on if there's more interesting to say. ### The first thing I'd like to do is make sure that everyone understands that the RootsWeb Genealogical Data Cooperative isn't Broderbund and *all* of RootsWeb's facilities are available for free. Most of what we do is completely free, and even nominally Member- or Sponsor-only facilities like mailing lists are available freely to folks who can't help support the site at this time. That's part of what the "Cooperative" in our name means. ### The second thing is that while we *greatly* appreciate the listowners who do actively support RootsWeb, nobody is under any obligation to do so. *NO* obligation at all. About the only thing we ask of listowners is that they understand that we're user- supported and that there's no other sponsoring agency, and that they can verify that for their users if their users ask what RootsWeb is. ### Several folks asked about RootsWeb's finances. I'll give information on our expenses and income below, but the first thing I'd like to address is what we'd do if we ever turned a "profit" beyond what it costs to buy hardware and bandwidth. We'd use the profits to buy datasets and bring them online. The Social Security Death Index is a famous government dataset that we could buy for a few thousand dollars, but there's a lot more datasets out there. Many jurisdiction have vitals, property records, court records, voter records, and all sorts of other material on electronic media and available to the public at cost. Some cemeteries now have their records computerized. RootsWeb would like to make those datasets freely accessible over the Web. We'd also use the profits to support record transcription projects. We'd like to buy a microfilm scanner, start scanning microfilms as fast as we can, and uploading the images to The Net. We'd also like to hack some simple data entry tools, so a community-minded genealogist could download the tool and a set of images and data- entry the records in their own home completely at their own convenience and then upload the transcriptions for everyone on The Net to use. Done right and with community participation, I think we could bring the equivalent of Salt Lake's holdings online within a reasonable number of years. ### Now about RootsWeb's finances to date. Last year's major hardware expenses are pretty easy to understand: Main servers (4 @ $7,000 each) $28,000 Various and sundry smaller servers $ 8,000 Network routers, hubs, and cabling $ 3,000 Uninterruptible power supplies, batteries, ... $ 3,000 We also have substantial bits-and-pieces costs above these. We also have substantial bandwidth costs. T1 pipes in California cost about $2,000 to $2,600 per month, though at this point RootsWeb gets a substantial discount because of some special circumstances. Our bandwidth costs will be rising toward market levels in the next year. Finally, we also have all the usual small organization costs: government fees, bookkeeping, supplies, you name it. And as an additional pain, we have substantial tax liabilities because we are a hardware-intensive operation and we have to depreciate our hardware costs across 5 years. Anyway, the bottom line is that our expenses for last year were above $60,000. RootsWeb now has around 1,600 Members/Sponsors, and our total income has been somewhat less than $40,000 (our median donation is around $20, and we have a few large donors who have helped pull the total upwards). The $20,000+ difference between expenses and income has come out of Karen and Brian's pockets. [ Not included, as either expense or income, is a server Apple Corp. is providing to help support the eWorld mailing lists. Also not included as an expense is the large chunk of consulting income that I've foregone to have time to support RootsWeb. ] ### Hope that information helps everyone understand how RootsWeb operates, what are goals are, and that listowners are welcome (but not required!) to help us pursue those goals. Cheers, B. -- Dr. Brian Leverich Co-moderator, soc.genealogy.methods/GENMTD-L RootsWeb Genealogical Data Cooperative http://www.rootsweb.com/ P.O. Box 6798, Frazier Park, CA 93222-6798 [email protected]