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Local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud

blog.acolyer.org

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Re: Local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud

#161

Post by cannonedhamster »

have_faith wrote: post #135

> you OWN YOUR data Like most people here I'm fairly hard line when it comes to personal data abuses but I still struggle with the concepts of owning data about yourself. It's a confusion I see amongst less technically literate people when a well meaning person explains to them the importance of some latest data breach and they try to understand the concept that they owned this data, it was theirs but now it has been…

The problem fundamentally is yes it's your data. It's what makes you, you. The reason this is important is because if you can't control this data it can be used against you. At some point in the near future if not already you'll have job applications rejected based on third party data you didn't sign up for and can't opt out of. It will impact your healthcare, your loans, what prices you see when you shop and what items are shown. In essence what makes you, you is used solely for controlling you and the options available to you.

Re: Local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud

#162

Post by jariel »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #39
jariel wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is it. We went from local, to local infrastructure/IT, to cloud services in which data is mixed with other data and ownership is nebulous. The business as you say, favours this, because the 'downsides' of the model are more on the side of risk (your data leaking, losing rights to your data, your data being 'sold' etc.) - which we don't like to pay for until it's too late. Unless there are 'big scares' or re…

If Equifax or even Ashley Madison leaks didn't cause any shift in the software culture, I'm having doubts a breach of Salesforce or G Suite would.

Agreed, although those were consumer leaks. When corporate/board emails, IP, comp lists, trade secrets get leaked, maybe there'll be change.

Re: Local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud

#163

Post by mceachen »

StavrosK wrote: post #106

So I got fed up with current image hosting solutions the other day, because I realized free image hosting is unsustainable and Imgur has turned into a social network, which is the opposite of what I want. So, I figured I'd create my own paid one, and am working on https://imgz.org . However, I want to add a free tier for people who are willing to host their own images, and was thinking of writing a daemon that would…

I've been working on PhotoStructure (not so much to be an imgur replacement, but as a way to automatically organize and share my large (many tb) and disorganized (due to failed photo apps and cos) pile of photos and videos. I'm releasing to a new wave of beta users soon if you want to sign up and try it out. It's a self-hosted solution with a web UI. https://blog.photostructure.com/introducing-photostructure/

As one entrepreneur/engineer to another: Don't underestimate the legal and logistical effort you'll incur from a caching CDN. People post pirated, abusive, and generally bad things, and if it's on your server, it's (becoming moreso) your responsibility. DMCA and takedowns will consume noon-trivial time, and makes simple corporate insurance decidedly not simple (or cheap). It's typical for media hosting companies to hire teams to handle these issues. I was shocked while working at CNET (way back when) when I found out most of a floor (in a large building) was for webshots' trust and safety team.

Re: Local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud

#164

Post by 72deluxe »

calferreira wrote: post #83
72deluxe wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sad about the Electron route. I don't consider it to be "desktop" software. Native toolkits are miles faster than the extremely lazy approach of running an entire new browser instance because someone wanted to write javascript for their "app". It's terrible.

In my opinion it's not all about lazyness. You have to consider the costs of building an app native for each platform vs a cross platform framework built with javascript. Single javascript code base for all platforms is a lot cheaper.

I am not sure on that really. I built a cross-platform control software for high-end audio equipment that ran on macOS and Windows and did all of its own drawing (charts, graphs, ALL controls [knobs, buttons, grids, faders etc etc etc], 2D overview with links of all devices, 3D scene of venue layout with OpenGL, diagrams, alerts and floating popup windows). No bitmaps used anywhere, all generated in code. Another guy handled the network stack that it used which was an entirely-bespoke protocol and he wrote the control firmware on the equipment. This was in C++ with wxWidgets. It redrew every 50ms and logged data received so you could keep historic data of all devices on the network.

I am pretty sure that all of these giant companies releasing garbage Electron apps have a bigger budget than the budget on the 2 people (us!) that wrote what we wrote in 2.5 years.

When I see how abysmal apps like Skype and Slack are, I despair. Colossal amounts of RAM and simply displaying text and pictures.

It might be more convenient for the developer to write in the first language they learned but it is producing giant bloated applications. More CPU cycles, more allocations, more power consumed, shorter battery life on mobile devices (laptops), more charging of devices, more fossil fuels burned.

Re: Local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud

#165

Post by StavrosK »

mceachen wrote: post #163
StavrosK wrote: post #106

So I got fed up with current image hosting solutions the other day, because I realized free image hosting is unsustainable and Imgur has turned into a social network, which is the opposite of what I want. So, I figured I'd create my own paid one, and am working on https://imgz.org . However, I want to add a free tier for people who are willing to host their own images, and was thinking of writing a daemon that would…

I've been working on PhotoStructure (not so much to be an imgur replacement, but as a way to automatically organize and share my large (many tb) and disorganized (due to failed photo apps and cos) pile of photos and videos. I'm releasing to a new wave of beta users soon if you want to sign up and try it out. It's a self-hosted solution with a web UI. https://blog.photostructure.com/introducing-photostructure/ As one…

> It's a self-hosted solution with a web UI

That sounds great, thanks! Is there an easy way for me to distinguish photographs from my photography work from snapshots I took with my phone?

By the way, your "Get early access" button does nothing on Firefox beta with uBlock/Privacy Badger.

> People post pirated, abusive, and generally bad things

Oh ugh :( I was hoping this would be curtailed by the fact that this service is paid-only, although I now realize I might have to rethink my "accepting cryptocurrency" idea. Thanks for the heads up!

Re: Local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud

#166

Post by nihonde »

herf wrote: post #139

I spent a lot of time with photos (Picasa) trying to do this peer to peer - this is what we built in the 2002 era. Here are a few issues: 1. Identity is hard to do on the LAN, so any sharing ends up using the cloud to figure out who has access. Similarly, identity is hard to move around, so representing your Facebook comments feed outside Facebook is difficult to do. 2. Any time you have a "special" server that handl…

This is fantastic first-hand feedback. Thanks for sharing this.

Re: Local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud

#167

Post by 72deluxe »

vpEfljFL wrote: post #59
jdnenej wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a fair comparison since most of the memory usage is just loading the app in to memory and then everyone is sharing the same app already loaded. Web apps don't have to be nearly as slow as they are. It's just that it's easier to make a slow app than a fast one. Also desktop apps are becoming super slow and bloated now thanks to electron.

> Also desktop apps are becoming super slow and bloated now thanks to electron. I can't quite get this point. From my perspective software engineers love/adore electron applications. Look at VScode as the example: - electron based javascript application - telemetry included - proprietary build with "open core" It is literally the most popular code editor right now (p.s. I don't use it). Why as a tech savvy user you w…

I do not love electron applications. They gobble RAM. Allocation is the enemy of performance.

I stopped using VS Code because of the billions of files it ships with (does anyone remember DLLs these days or what?) and its performance and debugging capabilities were very disappointing.

Re: Local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud

#169

Post by mceachen »

herf wrote: post #139

I spent a lot of time with photos (Picasa) trying to do this peer to peer - this is what we built in the 2002 era. Here are a few issues: 1. Identity is hard to do on the LAN, so any sharing ends up using the cloud to figure out who has access. Similarly, identity is hard to move around, so representing your Facebook comments feed outside Facebook is difficult to do. 2. Any time you have a "special" server that handl…

Thanks for taking the time to share this!

The issue I face with PhotoStructure is that people's home network frequently has throttled upstream rates. I'd love to provide a caching CDN, but I want all content encrypted. I don't want my pipes to see any data from my users.

How would you do perfect forward secrecy when only the library owner's key is available at upload time? Is it possible? If not, it seems that every bit of shared content would have to be re-encrypted and re-uploaded when someone new is granted access to that content.

Re: Local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud

#170

Post by jonpurdy »

ricg wrote: post #71

"It should support data access for all time." - This is key for me after I had to convert my notes more than once between formats after the original app(s) went into extinction (beloved Circus Ponies Notebook). That's why I'm designing any new apps around a file format that can be accessed even without the app. I have a "local-first" Kanban/Trello-style app, "Boards" ( http://kitestack.com/boards/ ), that uses zipped…

I just tried Boards out. It's really nice and exactly what I wish Trello could be for a single user. Will follow the progress on this for sure.
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