As promised, some initial thoughts on the foundation of a strong AUP to ensure the continued success of nipl.

Although each admin owns his own box, I think a set of nipl-wide rules regarding the usage of free-services should be created and _followed_. Not only will it promote a sense of organization and unity, but it will avoid confusion from admins and users as to what is allowed and "where" it is allowed.

I would think it not too difficult to come up with a strict "universal" acceptable use policy that all box owners and admins can agree on. The problem I see with this concept of a "universal" AUP, is for any potential contributing servers with limited resources not being able to reasonably provide all services outlined as acceptable in the AUP.

More importantly than what services are allowed, I think an AUP should describe what _users_ are allowed. I know some of you do not see eye-to-eye with me on this subject, but it is my strong personal opinion that usage should only be granted to users who are F/OSS contributors. Wether this means maintaining a project, contributing code to a project, or just blogging about any/various F/OSS related projects and subjects. I should clarify on that, when I say F/OSS related, I do not talk in a strictly computer/technology sense. I would include other "for the greater's good", not-for-profit organizations, and people associated with those organizations in this term as well.

rxKaffee