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Local-first software (2019)

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Re: Local-first software (2019)

#51

Post by lioeters »

scarface74 wrote: post #31
iagovar wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for being that guy: AFAIK Netflix has some caching devices that were pretty much home baked with FreeBSD and some other goodies. Can't remember the name, but I know they sit them in exchanges directly to ISPs. IIRC they were only using AWS for storing content with low frequency access.

They use AWS for much more than just “storing content”. You can read about all they do on AWS just by reading their blog and watching some of their ReInvent presentations.

Here's a list of Netflix blog posts about AWS.

https://netflixtechblog.com/tagged/aws

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#52

Post by z3t4 »

scarface74 wrote: post #29
elmo2you wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many far smarter people have said this before, far more eloquently than I can, but in short: Cloud Computing (and SASS even more so) is little more than just another attempt to recreate access/info monopolies, essentially the same profit proposition as existed with closed source software, while pretending to be one of the cool kids and use politically more acceptable (but in this context rather meaningless) terms lik…

What do you propose? That every company reinvent the wheel or host everything locally even if it’s not their core competency? Every company has to decide what its “unfair advantage” is and concentrate on that.

There is a third option: Let someone else host it. Having only one supplier is a monopoly. But if many companies compete about serving customers, you can choose the company with the best service, or if you prefer - the lowest prices.

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#53

Post by akulbe »

oblib wrote: post #43

This is the 3rd time in a week a "Local-First software" overview has been submitted and the 2nd time it's made the front page here. I'm pretty surprised about that because I'm about to release a local-first, offline-first, option for an app I make. This article also quickly moves past "local-first" software to conflict resolution which, in my opinion, is a distinctly different issue. It's certainly not reason enough…

Do you have a website where you talk about your stuff? I didn't see anything listed in your profile.

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#54

Post by z3t4 »

As platforms get more and more locked down (Chromebooks, Android, iOS) hosting the software in the cloud becomes a easier option. For example I'm working on and editor/IDE for programming, but it's next to impossible to compile programs on the platforms people use now a days. So in order to run a program that you made on your Apple phone, Android device or Chromebook, it has to run on a third party server...

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#55

Post by pferde »

fastball wrote: post #24
pferde wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a step between peer to peer and centralized, and that is federated. For most services, that should be the sweet spot.

How do you federate a video call with 10 people? Federation isn't needed because you don't need to have servers that communicate with each other, you just need some server that can host a given video call. So any open source solution works, no federation architecture is required.

The "how" would depend on how you implement it. The servers could determine at the beginning which one gets to host the call and tell all participating clients to connect there, or there could be some client-server-server-client model akin to e.g. IRC, where you would save some server bandwidth in exchange for worse latency (more hops). I'm just spitballing here, mind you.

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#56

Post by mkoubaa »

I think there's probably a market for a personal cloud, which probably sounds dumber than personal computer did in the 80s. What I mean by that is a computer somewhere in the garage, like a furnace, with enough compute and storage to drive all the devices and appliances in a house. In this model, devices do not have CPUs or memory, only input/output and a network chip.

The way this would work is for the computer in the garage to have the ability to divide itself arbitrarily into VMs for each purpose, with an ecosystem of images designed for things like fridges and gaming consoles. It should be possible to add or upgrade compute to the device in a hot swapped fashion, and because it doesn't have to be in a thin tablet, it could be easily cooled.

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#57

Post by scarface74 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #50
scarface74 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you propose? That every company reinvent the wheel or host everything locally even if it’s not their core competency? Every company has to decide what its “unfair advantage” is and concentrate on that.

What's wrong with hosting software locally and buying 3rd-party support for the stuff that's "not core competency"? It eliminates a single point of failure.

>What’s wrong with hosting software locally....it eliminates a single point of failure.

I’ll let that just sit there.

But you are going to host your own project management software? Your own expense reporting software? Your own email server? Your own payroll processing? Salesforce equivalent? Your own git server? Dropbox equivalent?

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#59

Post by scarface74 »

mrmonkeyman wrote: post #47
scarface74 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposite of depending on another company to host a service is to host it yourself. The average company of any size has at least a dozen external SAAS dependencies. Do you want to have the expense of managing all of those services yourself?

That's the easy part.

Really? Have you taken into account the fully allocated cost of the employee to manage it and the hosting cost? Do you have a DR strategy?

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#60

Post by scarface74 »

z3t4 wrote: post #52
scarface74 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you propose? That every company reinvent the wheel or host everything locally even if it’s not their core competency? Every company has to decide what its “unfair advantage” is and concentrate on that.

There is a third option: Let someone else host it. Having only one supplier is a monopoly. But if many companies compete about serving customers, you can choose the company with the best service, or if you prefer - the lowest prices.

No one company provides all of the services that the typical corporation needs.
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