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Nextcloud introduces social features, joins the fediverse

nextcloud.com

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Re: Nextcloud introduces social features, joins the fediverse

#71
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern php dev with packages managed by composer is fine. Its not perfect but I think immediately dismissing anything written in php is wrong.

> I think immediately dismissing anything written in php is wrong I have specifically pointed at multi-platform, network-intensive applications, and never claimed that PHP is not suitable for anything. If someone is not able to choose the right tool for the job, how can you trust him to do the job right ?

Please elaborate why PHP is an inadequate tool for developing multi-platform, network-intensive applications?

Re: Nextcloud introduces social features, joins the fediverse

#72
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of those features are optional. So if you don't care about some functionality just uninstall the specific 'App'. Sure that is not as secure as not having those Apps in the first place, but I think, in general, Nextcloud is moving into the right direction, as many of their use-cases require a tightly integrated but wide set of features.

> Most of those features are optional. So if you don't care about some functionality just uninstall the specific 'App'. That's true, but unless there are new developers joining to create/support these apps the addition of these new features may spread the developers too thin. Personally I'd rather have a robust set of smaller features than a buggy implementation of a lot of features. The latter is okay if it's just a…

That is like saying ice cream makers should focus on the 'core' tastes, claiming that that is banana and vanilla because you like those.

For you calendar and contacts are core for a file sync and share software? Above somebody also asked us to focus on 'core', meaning adding ACL's and probably dropping the calendar/contacts.

So it's like the fable where god decides to ask people what weather they want and everyone wants something different so he decides to go back to doing whatever the fuck he wanted. We just keep letting ourselves guided by contributors and customers...

Re: Nextcloud introduces social features, joins the fediverse

#73
post #39
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. All this added complexity only serves to increase the attack surface of something I really want to keep safe and secure.

+1 on this. My whole reason for using NC has been to remove anything like social features, and let me control sharing. Maybe all this will be optional, but the direction seems opposite to my needs. And the risks from 'extending' the network too.

It is all apps. You can even disable sharing. Heck, you can disable the Files UI...

Note that most people use Nextcloud to work with others and features like these are crucial to their productivity. In the end, we're guided by community contributions and customer demand... Luckily you can disable things you don't like :D

Re: Nextcloud introduces social features, joins the fediverse

#74
post #70
post #41

I have been using NC for a few years now and I am mostly happy with it. Contacts, calendars, sharing, photo auto uploads all work with my Android phone. My problem is the software is pretty slow and from a security perspective I'd be hesitant to expose it to the greater internet. That's just my gut feeling.

I feel the same. Basically, I wouldn't like to publish the address of my personal Nextcloud server to anyone (unless I am sharing a file privately with a friend). Fortunately, the social features are not built into the Nextcloud core, rather they are in a separate app. So we can just forget about it if we don't like it.

If you're not sure about the security you can firewall it of course, but keep in mind we pay 5K to anyone who can find a remote execute vulnerability in Nextcloud (and smaller amounts for smaller bugs).

Re: Nextcloud introduces social features, joins the fediverse

#75
post #69

Am I the only one that hates that the “fediverse” is not on the web? We didn’t need a separate protocol/app and closed servers to do what are actually just blog posts and replies.

What do you mean by "not on the web"? It is accessible on the web. Everybody with a web browser can see public posts and replies. For writing new posts, you need an account though. Here is the public account of Mastodon's founder: https://mastodon.social/@Gargron

... and it is all over HTTPS, so certainly very 'web', no need for special ports etc.

See https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/

Re: Nextcloud introduces social features, joins the fediverse

#76
post #30

As an admin of a 500 user instance I'm having mixed feelings about Nextcloud. Sure it's GPL and free and it got a lot better than the old owncloud mess that broke always but it's still somewhat a gamble. My install is just a no-warranty, non-commercial use case and I wouldn't use it for any large commercial installation without having at least one dedicated and skilled PHP-dev on-site. I came to resent their marketin…

Let's be honest, if we did a release with only stabilization, it might get us more users. Not more customers. And it is customers who pay for the development. Everyone asks us to focus "on the basics" and then claim their pet feature requests are, of course, basics. ACL's and user mgmt in your case, perfectly fine features, but features nonetheless. In the end, our development is guided by the community and customers…

Why do you say that a release with only stabilization brings you more users but not customers? Wouldn't the quality word-of-mouth convince more businesses to switch? And I assume they need professional support anyhow, don't they?

Another Nextcloud enthusiast and (very small) contributor here. Thank you for the awesome work you and the team do :)

Re: Nextcloud introduces social features, joins the fediverse

#77

« and soon Diaspora are part of this same network [ie. ActivityPub] » — I was surprised to read that, and after a quick check, it's not looking like it'll happen anytime soon, sadly. diaspora* is one of the most famous and successful open, federated social networks out there, yet it does not implement the protocol which is gaining unprecedented traction across a large number of implementations. Hopefully, Nextcloud i…

Is it really? Not being snarky here, but I joined diaspora early on and a year or so after the untimely death of the co-founder the project felt like it was going no where. 6 years later it feels like I never hear anything about it, and ActivityPub is almost a must for any serious "open" social network now.

Re: Nextcloud introduces social features, joins the fediverse

#78
post #43

The personal issue I have with ownCloud / Nextcloud, is that I simply don't trust the technical competence of the developers, who picked PHP as the most suitable programming language for a multi-platform network-intensive application in 2010. There were simply no technical reasons for doing this – and there are still none.

I have to tentatively agree... I would think that Python, NodeJS and Go would all be better options. Node would have the benefits of similar tooling for the UX/UI side as the backend, Python would also be scripted with more consistent constraints and Go was designed for this kind of workload.

Re: Nextcloud introduces social features, joins the fediverse

#79
post #30

As an admin of a 500 user instance I'm having mixed feelings about Nextcloud. Sure it's GPL and free and it got a lot better than the old owncloud mess that broke always but it's still somewhat a gamble. My install is just a no-warranty, non-commercial use case and I wouldn't use it for any large commercial installation without having at least one dedicated and skilled PHP-dev on-site. I came to resent their marketin…

Let's be honest, if we did a release with only stabilization, it might get us more users. Not more customers. And it is customers who pay for the development. Everyone asks us to focus "on the basics" and then claim their pet feature requests are, of course, basics. ACL's and user mgmt in your case, perfectly fine features, but features nonetheless. In the end, our development is guided by the community and customers…

GitLab seems to suffer from a similar conundrum, and they also seem to have gained a reputation for being unstable. Which is sad. In my experience, GitLab is very stable, nowadays, but it will probably never fully recover from its first impressions for some people.

Re: Nextcloud introduces social features, joins the fediverse

#80
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any specific reason you want to switch to them? OP just told you the problem

They said why they want to switch away from Nextcloud, not why they want to switch to Seafile specifically.

I can tell you as a Seafile user it's pretty slick. There mobile app is polished, and there core offering is stable. Been running an install for years and I've never had issues through many upgrades and iterations on the same install.

From a server admin perspective, they support docker natively and there support of WebDAV and FUSE give you a lot of flexibility in how you can leverage the software.

edit > Typos

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