Rackspace ends discount hosting for open source projects

Clarifies axe fell only on new applicants, not existing users, after fanatical disappointment

Rackspace has ended a program under which it offered “generous discounts on hosting for more than 150 OSS projects and communities”, but flubbed the announcement.

The closure of the program came to our attention after Reg operatives noticed the Tweet below from Eric Holscher, who posted an image in which it appears the fanatical services company planned to withdraw the discount entirely.

Looks like @rackspace is ending their OSS hosting program. Thanks for hosting @readthedocs for all these years! #fundoss pic.twitter.com/3Aof5dUNJ3

— Eric Holscher (@ericholscher) October 17, 2017

Holscher tends Read The Docs, a documentation repository that lets users of Mercurial, Git, Subversion, and Bazaar upload their docs. His Tweet generated plenty of offers to re-home host the service at keen prices, plus a bit of grumpiness directed towards Rackspace.

Which may be why Rackspace changed its tune and let Holscher know his services can keep their discounts, but that the program is closed to new applicants.

In a surprising turn of events... pic.twitter.com/ZeHxQLA6eK

— Eric Holscher (@ericholscher) October 19, 2017

In a mail to The Register, a Rackspace representative told us that “while Rackspace is no longer accepting new applicants to the Open Source Discount (OSS) program, all existing OSS program customers will keep their credits. Rackspace is committed to open source technology, and is contacting current OSS program customers to clarify the situation. Rackspace apologises for any confusion this may have caused.”

And apologising fanatically, The Register imagines, because the last thing Rackspace needs is a bad name in the open source community as it tries to make its way as a services company with a well-regarded but not-quite-cutting-edge cloud. ®