Unhost'11 Birthday Speech - state of the project after one year

[Michiel de Jong]

Hi!

The general meeting was fun yesterday, we voted in favour of all three issues:

vote 1: change of goals of our registered association as per request of the German tax authorities http://unhosted.org/diff-satzung

vote 2: paying out 4613.82 euros to Michiel as per https://github.com/unhosted/unhosted/wiki/expenses-year-1

vote 3: https://github.com/unhosted/unhosted/wiki/Financialplan - where Design Dictator will (initially, until further notice) be Jan-Christoph Borchardt, and Code Communist will be Michiel de Jong

after which we published our 'status report':

https://github.com/unhosted/unhosted/wiki/happy-birthday

I called it a birthday speech even though voice-over-air was involved. But i hope it's a good snapshot of where we are with the project. let us know of you disagree with anything that's said in there! :)

Cheers

Michiel

[ya knygar]

ah, i see - all the designers are from Germany by one or another mean..)
so i'm quitting my application and proposition for 'fair' UX-UI and
ideas competition on etherpad?

[Michiel de Jong]

Ya and I talked and found out what the confusion was: we are not dividing a centralized pot of money here, we are all entering an open market. Anybody can set up shop, and if you do it right, you'll get rich. But nobody will have an upfront guarantee that they will get rich. You need to invent your own monetization strategy, find your own investors, build your own product, and then hope people will use your product.

The only thing that's centralized here is that we all (app developers on one hand and storage providers on the other) agree on one open standard. All the rest is an open market, just like the web itself.

Ya, i'm glad we cleared up this confusion! :) So, yeah, please create your idea for an elearning platform. If you create a product that universities will want to use, then you can sell it to universities in Ukrania and beyond.

I hope it's clear now that this is an open market, where anybody, anywhere on earth and immediate surroundings, can get rich, without asking permission to do so from anybody else. Not in a centralized way by getting money from some imaginary central pot, but simply by putting the best product on the market, and monetizing it in a way that you yourself invent for your specific product.

Good luck! I hope you take the jump, find investors, make a great elearning platform, and kick microsoft out of the Ukraine elearning market in the process. :) All you need is a healthy disregard for the impossible, and do one very important thing: don't wait for permission to get started. if your plan is good, then just start working on it!

HTH,

Michiel

[Charles-H. Schulz]

Good to see it all went well... my only regrets is that I couldn't join you guys...

best,

Charles.

2011/9/11 Michiel de Jong <mic...@unhosted.org>

[Michiel de Jong]

Hi Charles, 

<offtopic>

we have video! :) Here is our attempt to meet the mayor: http://www.universalsubtitles.org/en/videos/1rVKcdpPYEsI/ It failed epically on the fact that the mayor doesn't work Fridays. :) I'll see if i can publish the second video as well, it involves the hotel receptionist girl explaining to Kenny that the mayor of Unhost' is actually a she... :) We met the locals on the Friday night village scene, and drank beer with the operator of the famous Unhost webcam and weather station.

</offtopic>

We also sent out the first 29 T-shirts to donators (sorry if you weren't in the first batch, we'll send another 15 out tomorrow, and will print a second batch soon).

We held the General Meeting over IRC, and after that announced the link to our report on where the project stands after one year:

https://github.com/unhosted/unhosted/wiki/happy-birthday

in short, we had a lot of fun in Unhost, and are really looking forward to unhosting an unconference in Unhost' on 9 september 2012. :)

Cheers!

Michiel.

[ya knygar]

thank you for the care Michiel,

there was a lot of discussion and propositions
actually,
the main confusion is that
i'v thought that https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/SURFnet
being a largest provider of Internet and it seems - other services for
the Educational field - willing to collaborate with Unhosted to create
e-learning system,
actually it seems like they need 'standard' to use, not collaboration
on particular
project.

That's sad as i believed that by international collaboration we, possibly
could make the brilliant effort for e-education into open and
progressive systems.
It's very active field in all countries i know, now. It depends on
latest efforts that
yet to be implemented.. i talk mainly of Web Applications here.

About MS - it is dominating with stated 98% of OS share here
(http://delo.ua/tech/gendirektor-microsoft-ukraina--133934/ if you'd
care to translate)
I think you know how it may be called. And now it comes with Clouds to
education,
even e-government as i'v said early.

sadly - the really useful educational field - systems that could
compete with proprietary efforts
- even - more by innovation and ideology, not only quality - is yet to
come in FLOSS world.

There are some nice attempts and emerging propositions from publishing
industry..
http://substance.io/ for one recent example here. But it all needs to
be combined and refined
to be the product, ofc. I'm working for such a projects - that finally
could be combined for
a quite a long time.. If somebody interested in e-Education on base of Unhosted
and much more - - please contact me.

I hope Unhosted folks would gather the powers and come with some
reference Product
by this - showing the market that the idea is alive.
If it isn't educational systems.. well.. maybe something on such a
scale of need and social importance.

>Not in a centralized way by getting money from some imaginary central pot, but simply by putting the best product on the market, and monetizing it in a way that you yourself invent for your specific product.

i think it is possible with FLOSS systems we all here and there -
develop. It is yet - the beginning of Internet,
but so far - all major companies i know in small or cardinal way -
contributed to FLOSS,
all - because it's simply - efficient, i think. Think of that there
weren't truly FLOSS, community-driven Internet Browser(s)
what the Internet would be like - now? =)

> I hope it's clear now that this is an open market

sure, open market that being driven by major players.
Micro players like Unhosted or other projects - are going the pretty opposite
direction.

I think - Publicity and Understanding of social benefits for any
products are as important as the Collaboration of FLOSS projects
for these products to deliver. I don't think that - for example FSF is
ensuring the collaboration or it is even in scope of it.
I don't think that GNU is the only great license. In fact we are in
pyofwave.info - using the RC MPL 2 because we think
it is even better to ensure the businesses in the benefits and
developers - in the freedom of continues software evolution.

i think - people should understand the difference before they buy
something in any online or offline shop/market.
For one different field, but very illustrative example
-- if the computers/mobiles you buy are being made by
workers which are being rushed to stay on nearly impossible production
rate, in 60+ hard-working hours a week,
just to fill the market with the 'next' 'new' device under any label
(you know - near 80% of all modern computing hardware
that you use - being made by the very same corporations, only then -
labeled like one or another company-product)
A bit off-top but i think it is important -- how do you think - would
users hype up such a products, wait and beg for these to come faster
then?

One of the obvious benefits in FLOSS is that you don't need to hurry
and torture your team - because you could try and organize many
people around the interesting project.. people comes, people goes,
project is still - alive.

If not the reference Product by Unhosted team (i don't see nothing bad
if some shop would be kind of centralized since
it is FLOSS -- who want - may setup it easily and create competition)..
At least - 'Unhosted', i think, conception and finally>>Standard(s)
that may come to W3C would provide the clear difference for Cloud
software
'traditions' so i'll try to work with it, for it; encourage the people i know.

In my current case/project (oh yes, i hope it all would lead into
some cool e-learning system finally .. maybe some p2p university right
from a start =)
:
i'm looking forward for engaging the collaboration of U with
http://lockerproject.org/
maybe some decent. storage system like Tahoe-LAFS (they are working
for something Ratio-nal >> in scope of Store, BTW)
as the currently used by U - storage back-ends doesn't seem enough for
theFNF.org devices and ain't very ready
to work with mesh networking.

What do you think of it? Is Unhosted team - willing to make it a
priority. I'm sure - you'll only gain in coolness ..
and
imagine if some of 'Freedom' devices that i'v described briefly in
https://groups.google.com/group/unhosted/browse_thread/thread/c213605a2ab34bd3
(Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2011 23:09:26 +0000)
would really come to the successful production, by this - showing the
cutting edge Unhosted possibilities world-wide..!
-

>All you need is a healthy disregard for the impossible

:) i think - in terms of faith and strong practical position -- we are
on the line with Tim Berners-Lee, RMS or any other successful
innovators -- in theFNF.org,
in FreedomBoxFoundation.org; in dozens of other serious organizations
that working all over the world now, and that we are trying and
uniting
under Free Network Movement..
by this - our point is that we could and we would change the current
paradigm that being proposed for Web by Major Players,
if there is the clear need which We and You - realize -- why to try for less?

PS: "universities in Ukrania" -- you almost guessed out local
pronunciation - we say "Україна" or "Ookrayina" if transcripted (by
me) =)

[Charles-H. Schulz]

Heheh... am watching it. Btw; Thorsten is working on the LibreOffice code so that we can be Unhosted ready (not sure what release we'll be though) but the cool thing is that he's implementing the protocols in the core of the office suite, so it works out of the box and not with an extension...

best,

Charles.

2011/9/11 Michiel de Jong <mic...@unhosted.org>

Hi Charles,