project still active?

[Timo Reimann]

Hi,

I was wondering if the 2cloud project was still active. Can anybody comment on that? I haven't seen too much progress on any of the 2cloud Github repos lately.

A short update on the status of the project would be appreciated.

Thanks

Timo

[Paddy Foran]

Hi Timo!

That's a complicated question, because I'm bad at this.

The last release was a very long time ago. If we're defining "inactivity" as "no releases for a long time, and none in the near future", yes, the project is inactive.

If we're defining "inactive" as "nobody cares or is working on it", then no, it's still very much active. I pay about $100 a month to keep everything running, so if I no longer cared, I'd shut the servers down and save myself some money. :)

I prefer to think of it as "hibernating". I am working on a next release, but progress is slow and I was probably overambitious as to what to include in the next release. For example, here's a commit I just made two months ago: https://github.com/2cloud/twocloud/commit/92cc93adff1e647015283344050924c84b4ec13f. I still have code that's not on Github, as well. I wrote a bunch of stuff yesterday, for example.

Part of the holdup is that I'm no longer a college student, so I don't have as much time as I used to, and my life's been pretty busy these last few months. Another part is, as I've grown as an engineer, I've discovered better ways of doing things that simply take more time. They take more time now, but will yield a less buggy, more stable, and all around easier-to-use product at the end, so I've mostly opted to spend more time now and less time maintaining.

Does that answer your question? Is there something I can help with? I'm wary of giving release estimates, because they're laughably, horribly wrong, but I'll help however I can.

Hugs,

Paddy

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[Timo Reimann]

Hi Paddy,

thanks for the thorough and prompt response, it was very helpful. The state of the project as you describe it sounds very reasonable to me. In particular, I totally support your effort to produce high-quality code even if it takes more time than a quick solution. (I happen to develop in a very similar fashion.)

Apologies for having missed that commit you referenced. I did not look at branches, which of course I should have considered when it comes to developing new features.

Thanks for your continuing effort with 2cloud, I really appreciate what you do. Oh, and frankly, I don't really care about release dates when it comes to FOSS like 2cloud. I'm happy to hear that the project is still active in the very sense that counts.

Cheers

Timo

2014/1/19 Paddy Foran <pa...@2cloudproject.com>

[Paddy Foran]

My pleasure. Sorry I don't have better tidings for you. I'm working on getting a release out ASAP, but I have very little free time these days :( Part of the problem is trying to figure out how to get 2cloud paying for itself, or (ideally) turning a profit, so I have more time to devote to these things in the future. While it's not the biggest blocking issue, it's one of the things I'm trying to figure out still. I oscillate between Amanda Palmer's "ask users to pay you" and the traditional "make users pay you". Either way, the software itself will always be free, open source, and published for anyone to run their own server.

I started a company to absorb the liability for this project, and every year it has posted a net loss trying to keep the service running. I'd like to change that, because I think user-centred indie web projects are things we desperately need, and it seems like the only way I'll get to work on things like that is if I work for myself. Which, obviously, I can't do if I'm relying on my day job to keep my services running.

Sorry, brain dump. Long story short: thanks for your support. :)

Hugs,

Paddy

[Timo Reimann]

Brain dump appreciated. :-)

I'm sure you've already considered the following, but what about a free trial period lasting anywhere between 30 and 90 days with users requiring to pay a small amount of money to keep the service alive (or maybe even more to make it profitable) AND point them at an easy to use approach to run their own backend. That way, you could please the non-tech savvy people as well as the ones that are capable of and willing to run their own 2cloud server.

Eventually, the backend implementations could stretch a number of alternatives; I'm thinking GAE, Dropbox, Google Drive, a Linux standalone server, pigeons -- you name it. At the same time, having only paying customers use the managed backend of yours would make it very easy to know and cover the operational costs.

My impression is that this approach would be in the very open and free spirit of 2cloud that you describe on the webpage, while also taking into account that hardware isn't for free.

Thanks

Timo

[Paddy Foran]

Hey Timo,

I'm currently leaning towards a free trial period of a month, with a small monthly/yearly fee after that. Something like $1-2 a month or $10-20 a year. I also want to reward people who have been with the project for a while, so I may extend a longer trial period to them based on how long their account has been registered. No matter what I do, http://get.2cloud.org (ignore the placeholder that's there :)) will exist as a guide to hosting your own 2cloud server and owning your own data. There would be, of course, no charge to do this (besides the cost of setting up your server).

While GAE is an interesting option, it's not currently being targeted for the next release--though I am trying to write the software in such a way as to make that an option down the line. Dropbox and Google Drive would only be able to provide stunted, twisted versions of the software, so I doubt we'll ever have a compute-free option. If I had to guess what was to follow an EC2/VPS/Linux server release, my money would be on a Heroku release.

But yes, my goal is not to own the software or the experience, it's to try and stop paying to provide a service, and maybe even find a way to make a living while providing services whose sole purpose is to benefit the users. If someone wants to run their own instance of the software, I'm ecstatic. Decentralisation is an important thing.

Hugs,

Paddy