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Show HN: Airborn – Private Google Docs Alternative

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Re: Show HN: Airborn – Private Google Docs Alternative

#111

Post by SliderUp »

twiss wrote: post #61
sfotm wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any plans to make self-hosting straight-forward? Granted, I haven't spent much time looking for it, but I've been looking for something similar to this for quite some time, and Nextcloud's Collabora isn't quite what I'm looking for.

Not really, because of https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=15596604 . Why would you like to self-host? (Not implying that there are no valid reasons, just curious which reasons are important to you.)

I wanted to look into self hosting because it's the only way, for security reasons, my company could use it.

Re: Show HN: Airborn – Private Google Docs Alternative

#112

Post by StanislavPetrov »

The whole idea of "cloud computing" is innately terrible on virtually every level. Those willing to entrust their data and the integrity of their data to any third party are either not very informed or not very smart(especially given the virtually daily reports of hacks, data breaches, and corporate malfeasance). This is especially true for word processing, which even the lowest capacity machines have the capability to perform without issue. If you value your data, your intellectual property, and your ability to perform technical tasks without disruption, you will be well-served to write all your own papers and documents on your own computer. Store them on your own hard drive and back them up to a flash drive that you physically control. Entrusting your data and your capacity to work to a third party should be avoided unless you have absolutely no other choice.

Re: Show HN: Airborn – Private Google Docs Alternative

#114

Post by kernel_sanders »

twiss wrote: post #31
bengotow wrote: post #18

This looks great! Minor nits: In what way is this an OS? Also in the US, Airborn (e.g. to be in the air) is spelled "Airborne" and it's difficult to type it without the trailing 'e' without spellcheck fixing it automagically.

The most significant ways in which it's a bit like an OS are 1. It has a Window Manager (try it out in the demo, you can drag around windows and such) 2. It has a File System, which does encryption and compression. This makes it so that the "apps" (documents and presentations, and in the future hopefully spreadsheets) don't have to know anything about encryption. This made it very easy to port the presentations app,…

How about airborndocs?

Re: Show HN: Airborn – Private Google Docs Alternative

#115

Post by germinalphrase »

twiss wrote: post #52
Filligree wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My main use case for Docs is collaborative fiction writing. There's no concept of "paragraph ownership"; there will be two or more people editing the document, and we'll go over it a half-doze or more times, editing as we go. The ability to make arbitrary changes is essential for this.

There's no permanent paragraph ownership in Airborn OS either, but it's locked for about 10 seconds when you edit a paragraph. Or are you saying that the two editors would be editing the same paragraph at the same time?

To offer a different use case: as a high school English teacher I will commonly work through a paragraph with a student, commenting and modifying as we discuss. The lock out would be quite frustrating.

Re: Show HN: Airborn – Private Google Docs Alternative

#116

Post by kajecounterhack »

twiss wrote: post #24
tylerhou wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious (and no negative implications whatsoever): is "we made it so that only one person at a time can type in a paragraph. No longer can that annoying classmate delete what you just typed" code for "operational transforms are hard to implement, especially without a source of truth?"

Yes and no :) I did indeed not implement OT, but it's also a true story that I would create a Google Doc and share it, nobody knows what to write, I type a sentence, and my classmates delete it as a joke, to mess with me :) But yeah, feedback on the collaboration is welcome. Do you think editing one sentence with multiple people is necessary, and if so why? And on the other end of the spectrum, Word-style edit reques…

FWIW OT isn't the only algo you can use to implement collaborative editing:

* https://medium.com/@raphlinus/towards-a-unified-theory-of-op... * https://hal.inria.fr/inria-00071240

If you want a library it exists too:

* https://github.com/josephg/ShareJS

Re: Show HN: Airborn – Private Google Docs Alternative

#117

Post by mark242 »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #112

The whole idea of "cloud computing" is innately terrible on virtually every level. Those willing to entrust their data and the integrity of their data to any third party are either not very informed or not very smart(especially given the virtually daily reports of hacks, data breaches, and corporate malfeasance). This is especially true for word processing, which even the lowest capacity machines have the capability…

The odds of you losing your hard drive and flash drive in a house fire are significantly higher than the odds of you losing data on S3.

Re: Show HN: Airborn – Private Google Docs Alternative

#118

Post by EGreg »

twiss wrote: post #24
tylerhou wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious (and no negative implications whatsoever): is "we made it so that only one person at a time can type in a paragraph. No longer can that annoying classmate delete what you just typed" code for "operational transforms are hard to implement, especially without a source of truth?"

Yes and no :) I did indeed not implement OT, but it's also a true story that I would create a Google Doc and share it, nobody knows what to write, I type a sentence, and my classmates delete it as a joke, to mess with me :) But yeah, feedback on the collaboration is welcome. Do you think editing one sentence with multiple people is necessary, and if so why? And on the other end of the spectrum, Word-style edit reques…

I for one welcome this decision. I would perhaps limit the locking to one sentence at a time (which may split into several after editing) rather than a paragraph, and with an optional timeout for inactivity.

I am a big fan of open source alternatives to Google and Facebook (see Qbix). Do you mind if I contact you?

Re: Show HN: Airborn – Private Google Docs Alternative

#119

Post by woranl »

twiss wrote: post #101
woranl wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept of Transparent Web Apps (TWA) is an interesting one - more so than AirbornOS itself. Any chance of packaging it (i.e. in the form of library, or make it as a SaaS) to promote adoption? This can enable more TWA and perhaps pivot yourself to become the TWA hub/directory.

Yes, I'm planning to make a library for it. It won't be quite install-and-forget, because the developer has to 1) push to GitHub or another public log before every deploy and 2) somehow let the Service Worker know where to find the latest version on GitHub. But it's definitely possible. A TWA hub sounds interesting. I think that if you have a list of web apps that 1. are a Transparent Web App 2. have had a security a…

The JavaScript trust issue will always be a concern when webcrypto is used, and webcrypto is a web Api expected to be made broadly available across browsers (desktop and mobile). If somehow the concept of TWA can be made easy for developers to adopt and you pivot to handle/streamline the heavy lifting, I think you may have a much more lucrative nitch. Think of this as VeriSign for TWA. Wouldn’t that be cool? Someone (i.e you or Mozilla) should do this. This really promotes the open web.

Re: Show HN: Airborn – Private Google Docs Alternative

#120

Post by taneq »

mark242 wrote: post #117
StanislavPetrov wrote: post #112

The whole idea of "cloud computing" is innately terrible on virtually every level. Those willing to entrust their data and the integrity of their data to any third party are either not very informed or not very smart(especially given the virtually daily reports of hacks, data breaches, and corporate malfeasance). This is especially true for word processing, which even the lowest capacity machines have the capability…

The odds of you losing your hard drive and flash drive in a house fire are significantly higher than the odds of you losing data on S3.

This response is about privacy, not offsite backups.
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