But I do think it's fair question to wonder why anyone would spend tens of thousands of their own money, and 12 hour days to support something for free.
I just want to briefly address this comment.
As for money, the data center we are hosted at I've worked with for years. They're very helpful. Most of the hardware we have is donated, however I have been able to score some upgrades and additional items from donations and such and by sweet talking the data center owner. There are actually a few techs there who have their own mining hardware mining on Eligius from inside the same data center. (How's that for low latency?) So, we have a good deal of support from various aspects of the community, and it is much appreciated.
When I contacted the data center this afternoon and was going over the issue they were all for getting it resolved and went to work seeing what they could come up with to help without breaking the bank. Turns out we were able to get a very nice upgrade to the main database server for pennies on the dollar.
I put in my personal time and effort because I believe Eligius is successful, I believe it is the best mining pool, and I believe a legitimate and transparent no-fee pool needs to exist for miners to use to lower their variance without giving up huge amounts of their earnings to do so in pool fees. I personally want such a service to exist, and I use Eligius myself with my own hardware.
Hopefully this helps. Thank you everyone for your support.
-wk
Thanks for the update. I think this is a good point to address. A lot of folks here are operating strictly on numbers, and if they can't quantify exactly what the profit margin will be, then they don't understand the motivation.
Sometimes the technology, or the community, have their own rewards for participation.
And people forget about donations helping to offset costs as well.
