Shutting down Ubuntu One file services • Hacker News Board

Re: Shutting down Ubuntu One file services

#151

Post by Touche » Wed, Apr 02, 2014, 6:23 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #149

Touche wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking more about OpenDocument, EPub, PNG. Things we take for granted today. It seems that once efforts transferred to the web companies simply have no desire to cooperate on their protocols. Even though cloud syncing is simple enough that dozens of companies have reinvented it, the companies don't feel any obligation (as I personally feel they have) to open up these protocols.

I don't think those examples were ever representative, and recent examples still exist: Google alone has WebP, WebM and KML, at least. And PNG didn't came from a company, it came from an ad-hoc group, and we definitively still have ad-hoc groups coming up with new standard formats. Even though cloud syncing is simple enough that dozens of companies have reinvented it, the companies don't feel any obligation (as I per…

You may be right, I may be looking at the past with rose-colored glasses. But still, it feels worse these days. Those formats I mentioned might have been developed by groups, but they were groups made up of companies with expertise, right?

With cloud syncing we have a few open alternatives, you mentioned ownCloud, but there's also git annex, and clearskies (btsync clone).

But those are all community projects. No corporate support. At least in the OpenDocument days you had Sun as the corporate owners.

Why does DropBox not feel some responsibility to step in here, as the industry leader? This is a company that was launched on HackerNews. You are like us, why does this not bother you?

Re: Shutting down Ubuntu One file services

#152

Post by aswanson » Wed, Apr 02, 2014, 6:32 PM UTC

Funny thing...just yesterday I was just considering opening an account with them and Tarsnap as a dual-strategy backup-of-backup.

Re: Shutting down Ubuntu One file services

#153

Post by yason » Wed, Apr 02, 2014, 6:39 PM UTC

I've loved Ubuntu One for years. This is too sad, I would've wanted to have Ubuntu use it automatically for all kinds of things such as home directory backups etc.

Are there any good open-source self-hosted options that I could run on my little box at home? Preferably something that doesn't require a special setup or deployment on a server.

I could imagine there are file-sync solutions that just need an operable SSH account somewhere and merely automate the use of rsync to do the transfers, watching files and taking care of conflicts.

Re: Shutting down Ubuntu One file services

#154

Post by jonknee » Wed, Apr 02, 2014, 6:39 PM UTC

yaph wrote: post #103

jonknee wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost everyone will have at least one completely up-to-date copy of their files. It's just a matter of signing up for a competing service and re-uploading. Four months seems like a long enough time to accomplish that.

It's not only about file storage. Ubuntu One offered a Web service to programmatically access the files. Imagine you've developed an application that interfaces with Ubuntu One and is mission critical for your business.

I bet you can count the number of people who did that on one hand. They're not shuttering the service because it was popular. They are open sourcing the code though, so you can run your own version and not change any code.

Re: Shutting down Ubuntu One file services

#155

Post by paradite » Wed, Apr 02, 2014, 6:45 PM UTC

Considering the fact that Ubuntu breaks sometimes on laptops, a online storage for backing up important files had been a good service for me. Now that it will be down, I have to configure some 3rd party software in order to get the automatic backup process. On a brighter side, I feel the Ubuntu on my laptop is getting more and more stable(no breaking for past few month in fact), so online backup may not seem that necessary now for me.

Re: Shutting down Ubuntu One file services

#156

Post by xanderstrike » Wed, Apr 02, 2014, 6:45 PM UTC

alokm wrote: post #14

sz4kerto wrote: post #6

"Today we are announcing plans to shut down the Ubuntu One file services. This is a tough decision, particularly when our users rely so heavily on the functionality that Ubuntu One provides" Ok, so do users really rely so heavily on Ubuntu One? If so, then why do you shut it down? If no, then why do you say they rely on it? I believe they don't rely on it. "The Ubuntu One file services will not be included in the upc…

I rely on it heavily. I have my home folder backed up and synced across machines on Ubuntu One. But I am using the free tier < 5GB. I will have to move on to other alternatives. I guess it wouldn't have been sustainable for them, seeing as others are giving a lot more in free tier. So they would have had only a handful of paying customers.

Take a look at Bittorrent Sync. It's free and unlimited (as it's peer to peer), and means your data isn't accessible to some arbitrary company.

Re: Shutting down Ubuntu One file services

#157

Post by fzltrp » Wed, Apr 02, 2014, 6:53 PM UTC

rkalla wrote: post #30

Did the timelines seem awfully aggressive to anyone? (June 1 service stops, July 31 all data is erased) For a service that we were suppose to be syncing our lives to, that seems like a really abrupt, customer unfriendly ramp-down. I would have expected something more like: 1. April 1 - no new accounts. 2. May 1 - can no longer add files to your existing account. 3. May - Dec - nagged/reminded constantly to pull your…

Everyone will wait the last second to get their data back (and complain about the cramped service) anyway. And it's not like an OS upgrade which could potentially break your apps or lose your data. It's just a mattee of pushing the sync button to get all your data back on your local drive. People will largely have time to find an alternative solution or buy a small storage device until EOS. Afaic, Ubuntu is pulling the plug on a very good service in a reasonable fashion: we should be thankful they kept it running for so long.

Re: Shutting down Ubuntu One file services

#158

Post by derefr » Wed, Apr 02, 2014, 7:02 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #118

danford wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the logic is that if you don't use the data for a month and a half and your only copy of the data is in ubuntu one it must not be that important?

Old photos might go unused for years at a time, until someone is getting married and needs material for a wedding slideshow video.

Is there any sort of "archival background sync" service that encapsulates Amazon Glacier in the same way Dropbox encapsulates Amazon S3?

Re: Shutting down Ubuntu One file services

#159

Post by derefr » Wed, Apr 02, 2014, 7:03 PM UTC

pekk wrote: post #145

shanemhansen wrote: post #63

I find the second paragraph disappointing, but unsurprising. "Our strategic priority for Ubuntu is making the best converged operating system for phones, tablets, desktops and more." My hope is that the next design fad that out-fads the current "make my 30 inch high-res monitor look like a 3 inch screen" fad will be a step back towards actual usability. Convergence is a usability nightmare. I'd rant more, but hey thi…

I don't understand why you would choose a distribution based on a vague "strategic priority" statement you found on some web page rather than any technical reason. Maybe you just meant to complain about Unity for the 4 millionth instance on HN?

I think it might be the seeming similarity to Microsoft's "strategic priority", which resulted in the W8 Metro UI.

Re: Shutting down Ubuntu One file services

#160

Post by mcintyre1994 » Wed, Apr 02, 2014, 7:16 PM UTC

lawl wrote: post #104

icebraining wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it really doesn't cost anything pushing your old code in a github repo or something. That's not true. The code must be checked for licensing issues; certain parts may depend on components they don't intend to release, or on third-party ones they can't release. It must also be checked to make sure it doesn't have any security implications (credentials, information about internal architectures, etc). Finally, re…

> certain parts may depend on components they don't intend to release Then hopefully that code isn't in the same repository during develoment, but as a separate library. Everything else makes no sense. The open source code can be useful even if it doesn't run without the library you didn't release. > or on third-party ones they can't release. Again, I hope for you, you didn't check in this stuff in your main code rep…

Software patents in the UK and Europe are actually quite a complex issue, although Canonical have publicly lobbied against them. I'll just shamelessly repost a previous comment of mine:

Software patents are not entirely avoided in the EU, just to be clear. Quoting a little from an essay I had to write, although “programs for computers” are excluded by Article 52 of the European Patent Convention (1963), inventions that include an inventive step and solve a technical problem by the utilisation of a computer program have been upheld on appeal, for example in the case of Microsoft Corporation (data transfer with expanded clipboard features. T 0469/03 - 3.5.01, (URL now dead : http://www.epo.org/law-practice/case-law-appeals/recent/t030...) They might tell us that computer programs can't be patented, but their courts say otherwise - including states involved in the upcoming European Patent (for those unaware, currently EU states choose which European Patent Office patents to accept, the European Patent will synchronise all states except Spain and Italy). Actually the situation in Europe is quite similar to America - software isn't part of their patent legislation literature either; but such patents have been upheld repeatedly.