I think self-hosting should be even more "plug and play" to be appealing to more users. During the lockdown I was looking for simple board-like games that could be played over the internet. There were a few promising ones that were only playable on a single hosted domain that hat a capacity of 100 parties. I thought that it couldn't be too asking for the most basic cloud server hardware to serve this game for a few people. I think it should be way more easy and straight-forward for the average user to try out some server application on your own server, be it for playing, collaborative work or organization.
I think Owncloud with its market place is a good example of an engagement into this direction but it looks like it's more like a garden of apps fitted for the platform. What we need is maybe an web-browser accessible hub where we can place or point to an app and quickly configure it to run on the server. SSH optional.
It's a bummer that that there's little demand and awareness for this, especially since we're using our devices in a world of internet services that are either paid or a privacy concern.
Thank you for this.
I feel relieved to read two opinions like this in a 15-minute span, the first one being on Reddit.
Since the WFH, I've been getting more and more meeting requests, often in the form of a calendar invite coming by mail. That gave me the idea of self-hosting my calendar (email is already de-googled, I have my domain + a hosting plan, etc.). I've literally spent a whole day looking at all the existing options, trying a few of them on my VPS and my Pi, etc. Incomplete documentation, abandonware, half-baked tutorials. No one seem to come close to Google calendar (the most common for the layman).
And I'm saddened that every time I want to make such a move, it's like everything is telling me to learn a skill (Python, Docker, code, etc.) before achieving my goals. This is appealing to the average user. I have a day job (that is nowhere close to tech and programming) and if something has to require not only involvement but also learning new skills before being done, it's barely worth the cost. That's, for example, why GUI took over the console for the general public.
Back to my issue, I've decided to create a Google account (without Gmail) for the sake of Calendar, Drive, etc. Unfortunately. If someone like Mozilla offered an alternative productivity suite, I'd pay for it in a heartbeat. In the mean time, I'll have to go back to big-G. Unfortunately.
This is something that I’ve been thinking a lot about recently. I’ve been able to self host quite easily as I’m very technical and capable of setting up and managing a Raspberry Pi, a NAS, and a VPS.
One of my dreams is to make a device that would make self hosting easy and cheap enough that anyone can do it. Something like a Chromecast, where it’s a <$50 device you plug in and an app guides you through your setup. From there, the device could have a platform like Cloudron or YUNOHOST where you install services via an “App Store” like index.
The open source, self hosting community is getting quite robust now and I don’t think it will be long before it’s really feasible.
Very cool! From the link in your bio, it looks more like a B2B Product than a consumer one though. Are you looking at a consumer product as well? The same underlying platform would probably be useful.
I think with popularity of docker, self hosting become a lot easier now as almost all server-side apps are available as a docker image. Ten years ago it was quite a struggle self-hosting multiple apps on a single servers due to dependency hell, but now it's as simple as maintaining a single docker-compose.yml that contains the definition of all your self-hosted app. Sure it still requires knowledge in basic linux and docker administration, but I think it still a lot easier to figure out than trying to fix dependency hell due to installing some random packages from random repos.
> What we need is maybe an web-browser accessible hub where we can place or point to an app and quickly configure it to run on the server. SSH optional.
I love hearing this, because this is exactly what I'm building. Not quite there yet, but that's exactly the dream! We just posted a blog about setting up a home server and attaching it if you're interested https://kubesail.com/blog/microk8s-raspberry-pi/
I think Owncloud with its market place is a good example of an engagement into this direction but it looks like it's more like a garden of apps fitted for the platform. What we need is maybe an web-browser accessible hub where we can place or point to an app and quickly configure it to run on the server. SSH optional.
It's a bummer that that there's little demand and awareness for this, especially since we're using our devices in a world of internet services that are either paid or a privacy concern.