It looks like the company hosting RubyOnRails.com (TextDrive, now
Joyent) is blocking all URLs that contain the term “site5.com”
anywhere in the URL with a misleading error message (Precondition
Failed). Competition is healthy, and we encourage it, but if it is
their intention to do this sort of thing they should be open and
honest with their customers, and the community about it. This does
not appear to be limited to just the rails site either. One of our
contractors is a paying TextDrive customer (http://
www.mattmccray.com/) and any link containing Site5.com that goes to
his site results in a similar error message.
Case in point:
http://www.adamgreenfield.com/test.html
http://www.adamgreenfield.com/site5.com/test.html
Examples (don’t work):
http://forums.site5.com/showthread.php?t=6758
http://engineering.site5.com/
http://fs.site5.com/~agreenfield/test.html
Examples (work)
http://www.adamgreenfield.com/articles/2005/12/13/rails-hits-1-0
At any rate, if TextDrive doesn’t want to play fair with competing
hosting companies, then we would be happy to extend the following
offer to the rails project. We will offer a dedicated machine (with
the operating system of your choice) for the hosting needs of the
rails project:
2 x 2.8 GHz Intel Xeon EMT64 / 64 bit
4 GB DDR ECC Registered RAM
2 x 200 GB SATA 7200 RPM 8 MB cache disks
100 mbit/s uplink
1 TB data transfer (if you need more, just let us know and it
shouldn’t be a problem)
More hosting companies offering rails based solutions is a good thing
for the technology as a whole. Competition in this market will only
result in the best possible situation for the consumer. If TextDrive
wishes to take anti-competitive actions like this, it is my sincere
hope that Rails will take their hosting elsewhere, even if elsewhere
is not with us.
–
Adam C. Greenfield
Chief Technology Officer
Site5 Internet Solutions, Inc.
Phone: (888) 748-3526 x 906
E-Mail: [email protected]