Join the first Unhosted App Store

[JK]

Hi!

Michiel intrigued me to stand up and kick-off a commercial app store
based on Unhosted. I can see novel ideas, lots of growth potential and
the chance to build something with lasting impact. The aim could be:

* To build the best place for discovering, managing and monetizing web
apps in the world.
* To gather a small, but powerful team with an app store expert,
developer, usability engineer and designer.
* To be (preferably, but not necessarily) located in Berlin.
* To build a demo and go-to-market quickly.

In the next step we need a Founding Developer with great java script
skills and a passion for the vision. Please forward to any developer
who might be interested.

If you want to know more or have specific questions (i.e. vision,
schedule, salary, incorporation), you can email me
jkoe...@gmail.com.

Cheers!
Juergen

*Happy UnBirthday Unhosted!*

[Michiel de Jong]

ACK! Everybody, this is a unique opportunity for a javascript expert to save the web, and get rich and famous in the process. I know Juergen personally from Betahaus, and he has winning ideas for this. If you have thought yourself about how html apps should work, then you guys should talk. Someone needs to build an app store fast.

Remember there will be one million pre-registered users (all of NL higher education students, as well as staff) for your app store in six months from now. So make sure it's awesome before then, and make sure you're part of this.

Good luck!
Michiel

[ya knygar]

hi, i have an opinion that for such a scale of project- JS and
HTML/CSS developer should work on pair but not as a one person.
What do you think?

I could 'paint' wonderfully, !strictly with FLOSS tools, know the
latest HTML5/CSS3;

good enough JS - needs practice. These new HTML5/CSS3 spec's
are, themselves - continuously challenging and replacing the
programming for me, now =)

I want to work with Unhosted as an UX-UI designer for the NL education
systems, later - for Ukrainian education.
I want to make the mobile clients etc. As far as it is possible - on Web Stack.
I strongly prefer to Not make the platform-stretched Android/iOS apps
- as something separate from Web tech,
possible case when i work for these platforms - PhoneGap etc.
I strongly prefer Web Apps 'Platform', by this.

I could work - only if i'd transfer from my current freelancing to the
work with Unhosted as a paid contributor.
Part-time would be enough i think
-- given that for JS part of UI - there would be - other team members.
+1 for the "small, but powerful team"

At other part of time i will continue to work for theFNF.org, XCCC,
W3C AR CG implementations etc.
On these - we could promote Unhosted as well,
since it would be cool with me :)
-

I propose:

since Unhosted team/community have
plans/sketch-ups/ideas/propositions - let's all - enlist these all the
possible
on Etherpad Lite,

so the contest wouldn't became the competition of ideas but a
particular realizations.

Then - let's up the Competition for best UX-UI mock-up(s), let's say
Sketch(es) based particularly on
community/team agreement around the best from Pad.
Finally - hire the best by voting of current Unhosted team.

Unhosted?

[timonr]

Hi there,

that one made me from a lurker into a poster :-) From a user's point of view I can not see how the concept of an App Store has anything in common with freedom, openness or decentralization. It's quite the opposite, I guess.

Just taking the idea of an App Store and putting it into a different context may fail miserably. There should be better ways to motivate developers building their apps on unhosted technology.

Not to be meant offensive, though. I really appreciate your work!

Cheers.

Timon

[ya knygar]

the talk is about Open Source store in best traditions of
https://apps.mozillalabs.com/
or kinds. The point in these - in providing the stages for evolution
of Open Web Platform,
in this case Web Apps with Unhosted tech.. significant stage i think.

Open Web Platform is better than Closed that often being used in App
Stores - obviously -
by neglecting the dominance of centralized markets with 'unfair'
prices. Neglecting by giving
the same tech to any interested, by providing the ubiquitous web
platform rather then locked
to the vendor's device.

If i'm correct - this new project would help the NL
(foundation/institution whatever) that fund the project
- once, and then - help any other
by Open Source code.

You see - the Apps Stores like Moz proposes - ain't rising as well as
they should be for healthy market competition.
I hope - due to the lack of 'Amazing new tech' that Unhosted is about.

Given that browser based storage specifications, device API's that
would be able to provide quality and reliable storage
for data that Unhosted - unhosting -- are on the cutting edge of
development now, i think - the projects like this App Store
would clearly help the Open Web to evaluate best practices, show the potential.

[Michiel de Jong]

Hi Timon,

Good points.

On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 2:29 PM, timonr <timonr...@googlemail.com> wrote:

Hi there,

that one made me from a lurker into a poster :-) From a user's point of view I can not see how the concept of an App Store has anything in common with freedom, openness or decentralization. It's quite the opposite, I guess.

Just taking the idea of an App Store and putting it into a different context may fail miserably.

I've started to say app pump instead of app store to the various components that would be involved in it: a format, a compiler tool, review blogs, a start menu, an ide, and mirroring. Of these, 'review blogs' can become centralized relative to the start menu, especially if both are run by the same big monopoly. But I think if we keep these six things separate, and each one is open source, then that risk is a lot smaller, maybe?

There is also the option of not creating (all of) these six tools. Review blogs and start menus would still exist, but would point to URLs. IDEs would still exist, but would only work if you deploy to a url you host. And if apps are hosted instead of packaged, then forking must go via for instance the 'fork me on github' ribbon, where you may not find the same code in the repository as what you're looking at. Without the ability to fork apps, there is no software freedom. The only way I see to bring software freedom to the web is through either greasemonkey or some sort of format where the code you fork is directly the code you run - in other words, apps.

So making it possible to give a user their right to fork and patch the apps they use is one motivation to talk about web apps as opposed to web sites. Another one is to encourage people to write clientside-only apps. A clientside-only app which you load into your browser via an app distribution channel, and from which you sync data to your remote storage, requires no hosting at all on the part the developer. I thought that could be a revolutionary concept.

 

There should be better ways to motivate developers building their apps on unhosted technology.

the only ideas i have for this are providing said 'app pump' tools, or by simply telling a lot of potential app developers about the benefits of our architecture and explaining to them how absurd it is that they, as app developers, are still in the by-business of hosting user data.

Also, I want to make a big push forward on syncStorage, the client-side library that works on itself or as a plugin for frameworks like backbone.js, as a backend-connector to your remote storage.

Other ways would be writing loads of apps ourselves, or organizing competitions and such, but both those options are not very scalable in the long term.

Not to be meant offensive, though. I really appreciate your work!

no, not at all! I appreciate your insightful remark. Let us know if i was able to answer it a little bit and/or if you see any alternatives to putting part of our energy into encouraging 'app pump tools' startups to adopt our standard. I'm definitely open for suggestions!

 

Cheers.

Timon

[ya knygar]

> making it possible to give a user their right to fork and patch the apps they use

it is in scope of software licenses ofc

> The only way I see to bring software freedom to the web is through either greasemonkey or some sort of format where the code you fork is directly the code you run - in other words, apps.

Unhosted is the way to enlighten the possibilities of Web Apps,
'interpreters' that Web uses, vs 'compilers'.
It would depend on bandwidth ofc.
though compiled files people usually use now,
are usually using more space than source code, so,
given the overall approach to 'Native' Web Apps experiences
-- JS/HTML/CSS stack would be tested again for ubiquitous and
i hope - by the Unhosted W3C CG -- interoperable usage.

> A clientside-only app which you load into your browser

Gathering and packaging the advanced web apps with FLOSS license of choice,
to make them run wholly in web browsers is a great effort, as for me.

Another great - is to make the 'public' apps data reachable and self/community
host-able with some level of replication, so the data would be
a little more secured from loss, yet - secured from hack.

Storing the personal part of data is what we are about in the FNF
along with storing the 'public' data that is alone - difficult enough,
Unhosted could help us all to advance in the world-wide usage
and paint the fleur of Freedom Networking efforts into more civil,
understandable for user - approach.. ?
So people would see that Freedom Networking is for Humanity Freedom,
not only for hackers to gather =)

I foresee one particularly exciting variant:

You mention
The channels
-- i think - the idea may
be greatly enhanced by using our 'Freedom' kind of devices,

imagine the mobiles mesh on peek of :) ..let's imagine - 'standard'
54mbit connection..
with replicated
unhosted apps storages/shops always near,
may be in FreedomBases that are being developed to rise as small, silent,
self-owned or community owned servers,
which act like a personal hosting into which you upload the apps after you buy
them.
Review Blogs may exist to validate the latest/rightest code, for ads
and ability
to buy the apps. Think of it like of an advanced Linux repositories.
In relations of my interpretation - you buy from 'Review Blogs',
though - i may misunderstood the review you mention

Then - Your apps get fully routed to you by 'Freedom' kind of networks that
may be used without any central authority, at all. Fully ad-hock in
some places which
needs it.
That is the way we move to secure the software Freedom for the Web in
theFNF.org ;)

What do you think of such a variant?

> how absurd it is that they, as app developers, are still in the by-business of hosting user data.

you have the right idea, i think. With the modern SoC hardware

- Popular Cloud Vaults (farms, whatever)
look like an energy and ecology dumpers. See -
http://green-broadband.blogspot.com/2011/06/could-net-be-killing-planet-one-web.html
for one example.

I'v had a project around centralized cloud computing when it was
popular to consider about :)
The rapid evolution of modern 'embedded' platforms that could be
liberated and used for
whatever with certain will - shows the far, far more 'Energy
conversion efficiency'
(Slavonic languages use this term often - more then - just for it's
thermodynamic mean,
Russians often call it shortly 'КПД')
for 'Freedom' devices i see:
- in energy effectiveness
- in the value for the user that increasingly pays for a self-owned
device, not some corporate place to sit.
could use it as he/she/it like if world would
succeed in Open Hardware and FLOSS OS's for that..
- portability and far better chances for a data liberation --
unhosting -- migrating.
- i would dare to say - hack resistance. It is doubtful on first look
but where you see
that systems fails with hundreds of thousands of acc's hi-jacked, here
- in 'Freedom'
networking hardware example - your data is decentralized and, with a
clever replication,
you could turn off your device if there is a danger you are aware, and
could rely on
that - other 'seeders'/'hosters' wouldn't have enough data in one
place to be easily hacked.
It is arguable point but i don't see what could be worse than
hi-jacking of thousands of "acc's"
per-hack

> Other ways would be writing loads of apps ourselves, or organizing competitions and such, but both those options are not very scalable in the long term.

Writing by ourselves is uncool, though, competitions on some point -
may be, as for me.
Attention and experimentation of walking-by developers is important
but i think - on such a stage - developing by grant-funded or how it
would(/could/is) be -
conception for these NL education facilities which, as i'v understood - work
with the Wireless systems also -- may be the better kickstarter for the whole,
hm.. Unhosted movement ?)

[Timon Reinhard]

Michiel,

thank you for taking the time discussing this. Your reply helped me to better understand what Unhosted is about and in which direction it is moving. While still having a lot of questions, I'm going back to lurk-mode for now. I feel I have to start digging deeper into unhosted's technology and code before talking about it :-)

-- Timon

2011/9/10 Michiel de Jong <mic...@unhosted.org>