I apologize if you receive this announcement multiple times from other
mailing lists, but I want to be sure everyone is informed regarding
financial support that Rootsweb is receiving from Palladium Interactive.
This will provide Rootsweb the funds needed to continue to operate as they
have in the past and to cope with the growing load on their servers. Here
is the announcement from Dr. Brian Leverich and Tim
Pierce, System Administrator:
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Dear RootsWeb Community,
On 1 April 1998, Palladium Interactive reinforced the contributions of
thousands of individual genealogists by becoming the sole commercial sponsor
of the oldest and largest Internet genealogical resource: the RootsWeb
Genealogical Data Cooperative.
An *extremely* important aspect of the sponsorship is that Palladium's
commitment to RootsWeb goes far beyond simple financial support: Palladium
and RootsWeb will work together to develop an exciting new generation of
tools linking individual genealogists' lineage databases to the myriad data
resources on the Internet.
Palladium Interactive is the creator of the Ultimate Family Tree software
for genealogists, the only genealogical software that can be used by novices
but provides all the capabilities that experienced genealogists need. UFT
itself has a distinguished lineage, being descended the widely-acclaimed
Roots III and Roots IV software packages that defined professional-grade
genealogical software more than a decade ago.
Rootsweb also traces its origins back more than a decade to the founding of
the ROOTS-L mailing list and the Roots Surname List query system. Now with
more than 300,000 users, RootsWeb currently hosts more than 2,500
genealogical Websites and more than 3,100 mailing lists dedicated to surname
and locality research. The hosted Websites include:
* the Roots Surname List, which now includes 404,000 submissions
from 55,000 genealogists
* 40 of the 50 USGenWeb state pages and a large majority of the
3,100 county pages
* the USGenWebArchives with hundreds of megabytes of searchable data
* and hundreds of other resources
Besides ROOTS-L, RootsWeb also hosts 3,100+ other mailing lists dedicated to
the discussion of specific surnames, ethnic groups, and geographic
localities. RootsWeb's Web servers handle 1,000,000+ Web "hits" each day,
and RootsWeb's list servers allow genealogists to exchange 3,000,000+ pieces
of e-mail each day.
While RootsWeb has historically been supported by thousands of individual
contributors and while individual contributions will remain RootsWeb's
mainstay, Palladium's contribution provides RootsWeb with the ability to
substantially increase the range of resources freely available to Internet
genealogists.
For example, the first two months of Palladium's sponsorship have allowed us
to add:
* A new search engine server, which has immediately made the
equivalent of 500,000 new pages of data searchable by Internet
genealogists and which will allow us to upload another 4,000,000
pages in the near future.
* A new high-capacity router, that will increase from 2,000 to 5,000
the number of genealogists who can simultaneously be use RootsWeb.
* A new mailing list archive server, which will enable genealogists
to conveniently scan the archived posts of our 3,100 mailing using
their Web browsers.
In addition to the immediate, tangible benefits of Palladium's sponsorship,
RootsWeb believes that the joint Palladium-RootsWeb software development
projects will provide much, much greater benefits to the genealogical
community. Over time we expect to see the seamless integration of Ultimate
Family Tree with the burgeoning genealogical resources on the Internet,
allowing even novice users to easily find Internet Websites, mailing lists,
and databases where they can extend and refine their understanding of their
family's history.
On behalf of the million members of the Internet genealogical community,
RootsWeb thanks Palladium for their contributions to the near-term needs and
long-term advancement of our community.
Sincerely,
Dr. Brian Leverich
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So there's the official story. As to some of the concerns that have begun
to float around:
WILL MANDATORY FEES BE IMPOSED ON LIST SUBSCRIBERS?
----------------------
No. RootsWeb is free: it is a resource provided free of charge to the
general genealogical community. Period.
Some people have expressed worry about the phrase ``services at minimal
cost'' in Brian's letter. Minimal means zero: we will not charge
across-the-board fees to subscribe to mailing lists or run archive searches.
The reason that for emphasizing ``minimal cost'' rather than ``no cost''
is
to remind people that running RootsWeb does cost real money, and we want to
encourage as many people as possible to become RootsWeb Members and Sponsors.
DOES THIS MEAN THAT UFT OWNS MY MAILING LIST OR MY DATA?
---------------------
No. Absolutely not.
Palladium's sponsorship has *no* effect whatever on RootsWeb's relationship
with the listowners or list subscribers. The terms of the sponsorship are
limited to underwriting the cost of RootsWeb operating expenses, and funding
new research projects. There is no way that RootsWeb would enter into a
commercial partnership that would involve taking away your rights as
genealogists, listowners and RootsWeb sponsors.
RootsWeb's chief source of funding is still from individual subscriptions.
That's how Brian and Karen prefer things: it means keeping people our
highest priority, and it's the best way to avoid compromising your interests
in favor of some nameless corporate machine. The goal here is to augment
our main financial support with a healthy partnership to produce some really
powerful genealogical tools.
Regards,
Tim Pierce
RootsWeb Genealogical Data Cooperative
volunteer sysadmin and general hacker