Can I just say how wonderful it is getting to be part of this community?

[Lonkle]

The developers are responsive and intelligent. The community rallies behind one another even the non-developers cheering on the developers.

There's a new update at least every few weeks to Cloudron so it's clearly actively maintained and it's just a brilliant platform with exciting new features that the community actually gets to weigh in on. So, yeah, thanks everyone for putting up with my incessant posting and allowing me to be part of the future of the web (I really believe that's what the Cloudron concept is going to be).

[marcusquinn]

Yup - I can see something similar happening for mobile device apps now that Apple, Google & Microsoft have forgotten who adds the most value to their walled gardens:

https://twitter.com/JeremiahLee/status/1309183061532250113?s=20

[Lonkle]

@marcusquinn said in Can I just say how wonderful it is getting to be part of this community?:

Yup - I can see something similar happening for mobile device apps now that Apple, Google & Microsoft have forgotten who adds the most value to their walled gardens:

https://twitter.com/JeremiahLee/status/1309183061532250113?s=20

I actually follow PWA development but we're just not there yet on iOS or Android (though Android is further along). Ironically, on Desktop, Chrome is the closest we've come to "real apps" in a browser (they even have USB APIs), but Chrome on Desktop has huge performance issues! Tho computing power will plateau eventually and PWAs may be the future. That would be pretty cool.

[marcusquinn]

@Lonk Yup, worth following anyway, I feel the tide is turning: https://twitter.com/appfairness

[Lonkle]

@marcusquinn I like that! And the anti-trust investigation this year was pretty cool.

We're pretty far away from that, but the anti-trust thing (I think) did push Apple to allow us to continue sideloading apps as we please. I'm part of another community AltStore for iPhone which is basically like the Open Source alternative app store community. It has a similar community vibe as here - and it's a fun cat and mouse game because Apple doesn't want an alternative App Store on their phones. But we did it, and it works, and it breaks nearly every update they do to block us - but they've finally stopped trying to stop us after the anti-trust investigation.

[necrevistonnezr]

Sorry, the CAF is mostly hypocritical, singling out Apple and Google for something every single hardware or software games (Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony ...), mobile (Google, Microsoft, ...) or music (yes, Spotify) platform has been doing (or unsuccessfully trying to do) in the past until today.
No one asks Spotify to be allowed on the platform, distributing and selling music without paying a substantial share to Spotify.

[Lonkle]

@necrevistonnezr said in Can I just say how wonderful it is getting to be part of this community?:

Sorry, the CAF is mostly hypocritical, singling out Apple and Google for something every single hardware or software games (Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony ...), mobile (Google, Microsoft, ...) or music (yes, Spotify) platform has been doing (or unsuccessfully trying to do) in the past until today.
No one asks Spotify to be allowed on the platform, distributing and selling music without paying a substantial share to Spotify.

Oh, I agree on that totally - but if we're being honest here, I don't mind the hypocrisy as long as what they're trying to achieve will help users and consumers (and any pressure on Apple to not "disallow" sideloading I'm for). I'm just pushing for sideloading being allowed on Apple. Thanks to another open-source project I contribute to, altstore.io, there is one. At the beginning of it all, it was a cat and mouse game where they would "secure" something we needed to sideload apps to make AltStore possible. But since all this Spotify stuff and the antitrust investigation they have gone easy on us and even reverted some of the security that was locking us up after that.

[jdaviescoates]

Yes, it's great here isn't it

When my existing phone dies I'm also looking forward to getting a 2nd hand phone that'll run /e/, LineageOS, or maybe even just the Android Open Source Project (i.e. Android without all the Google stuff baked in), probably in that order of interest.

[Lonkle]

@jdaviescoates said in Can I just say how wonderful it is getting to be part of this community?:

Yes, it's great here isn't it

When my existing phone dies I'm also looking forward to getting a 2nd hand phone that'll run /e/, LineageOS, or maybe even just the Android Open Source Project (i.e. Android without all the Google stuff baked in), probably in that order of interest.

Sp you're really into Android-based custom OSes huh? I've never met someone IRL that has one yet. Have you used any of the ones you listed before?

I have a Moto G Power lying around, I wonder if I could root it.

[marcusquinn]

Can't remember if I found on this forum but these devices & OS looks interesting: https://puri.sm/

[jdaviescoates]

@Lonk said in Can I just say how wonderful it is getting to be part of this community?:

Sp you're really into Android-based custom OSes huh?

I'm not sure I'd go that far, but it does really frustrate me that my phone keeps running out of space whilst it's got loads of Google apps on it that I never use and cannot uninstall.

@Lonk said in Can I just say how wonderful it is getting to be part of this community?:

I've never met someone IRL that has one yet.

I have. Probably more than one. But I know that Chris from Web Architects has them for his whole family.

@Lonk said in Can I just say how wonderful it is getting to be part of this community?:

Have you used any of the ones you listed before?

Yeah, a tiny weeny bit. The Wileyfox phone I've got originally came with Cyanogen on it, but when Cyanogen Inc closed down it updated to stock Android instead.

@Lonk said in Can I just say how wonderful it is getting to be part of this community?:

I have a Moto G Power lying around, I wonder if I could root it.

There is no 'Power' one listed on the /e/ list of supported devices but they do list other Moto G devices, so I guess it might be possible

Personally, I'm definitely going to go for one that is specifically mentioned on the list (or similar lists for others OSs), and a newer one too. I want one that'll run Android pie, has Dual sim and a Removable battery. Probably a FairPhone FP2 (FairPhone 3 is out now, so easier to pick up a FairPhone 2).

[jdaviescoates]

@marcusquinn said in Can I just say how wonderful it is getting to be part of this community?:

Can't remember if I found on this forum but these devices & OS looks interesting: https://puri.sm/

Yeah, they are cool if you can afford them.

See also PinePhone which is a similar sort of thing, but much cheaper.

Here is a blog comparing them both:
https://tuxphones.com/purism-librem-5-vs-pine64-pinephone-linux-smartphone-comparison/

[mehdi]

@jdaviescoates You've heard of LineageOS i guess ? It's the "new" Cyanogen : the project created by basically the whole former Cyanogen team when Cyanogen Inc closed.

I ran Cyanogen / Lineage for a few years too, it's really great.

[jdaviescoates]

@mehdi yeah, I linked to it above

[Lonkle]

@jdaviescoates said in Can I just say how wonderful it is getting to be part of this community?:

But I know that Chris from Web Architects has them for his whole family.

I love when. a tech member of the family makes them use all custom cool tech. I don't know that many people outside the Wordpress orbit, but it looks like your friend does some pretty cool stuff.

[Lonkle]

The Android ecosystem is so diverse with custom firmware. Makes me wanna switch. I just have to avoid the draw of the iPhone 12 mini

[Lonkle]

But I do work on AltStore which, in it's own way, half-of the way there. Open apps to all developers. I do want to upgrade to a new Android phone someday because I only use the Moto G Power for testing webdev stuff.

[necrevistonnezr]

@Lonk said in Can I just say how wonderful it is getting to be part of this community?:

The Android ecosystem is so diverse with custom firmware. Makes me wanna switch. I just have to avoid the draw of the iPhone 12 mini

I for one like the walled garden of iOS / iPadOS that comes with tighter security - even with the existing security and appstore flaws it's far from the Android security hellhole. It's a system I don't have to worry about (more or less) - it's pretty secure even when my mother can use it (mother-proof security - I should trademark that). It's gotten so far that when I receive a suspicious email on my PC that I can't identify immediately, I just open it on my phone.

BTW it's what I like about Cloudron as well and why I pay for it even though I'm just a home user: I usually don't have to worry about it and I spent far less time fiddling with settings.

[Lonkle]

@necrevistonnezr said in Can I just say how wonderful it is getting to be part of this community?:

@Lonk said in Can I just say how wonderful it is getting to be part of this community?:

The Android ecosystem is so diverse with custom firmware. Makes me wanna switch. I just have to avoid the draw of the iPhone 12 mini

I for one like the walled garden of iOS / iPadOS that comes with tighter security - even with the existing security and appstore flaws it's far from the Android security hellhole. It's a system I don't have to worry about (more or less) - it's pretty secure even when my mother can use it (mother-proof security - I should trademark that). It's gotten so far that when I receive a suspicious email on my PC that I can't identify immediately, I just open it on my phone.

BTW it's what I like about Cloudron as well and why I pay for it even though I'm just a home user: I usually don't have to worry about it and I spent far less time fiddling with settings.

I feel the same way. I compared Cloudron’s App Store to a more catered version of an App Store. It just works is actually more applicable to Cloudron than iOS these days, but iOS Is my mobile OS of choice personally. I may be jealous of custom firmwares cause they seem fun. But I don’t even like jail breaking; too buggy. The only thing that was missing for me was sideloading legit apps that aren’t let in the official app store which is why I work on altstore.io. I don’t play Fortnight, but I could still install it if I wanted to.

[ruihildt]

I'm also running LineageOs on my one+6 without Google apps(with microG).

It's good, though I have one banking app not working at all and some apps without notifications (no gapps = no push).

I don't miss anything, and still install some apps from the playstore through Aurora Store which is working flawlessly lately.(It wasn't always the case)

[Lonkle]

@ruihildt Do only some apps get notifications or no apps do because of the lack of “gapps”?

[ruihildt]

@Lonk All apps relying on push notifications will fail notifying.

This is probably most of them (for example Slack, Messenger, etc.).

I don't care at all, but I can see how it could be a deal breaker for other people.

[malvim]

I know this thread has drifted somewhere else, but I wanted to come here and say thank you to the devs as well. Thanks for Cloudron and for all your work. Sometimes I think about it and can't really believe there's just the two of you, @nebulon and @girish. You guys plan long-term, commit code everyday, are active on the forums, chats, git issues, are able to take the community's ideas and work with us. This is really much more than I expected from a two-person team, you guys rock!

Also, shout-out to all the app packagers out there, you guys are amazing! And to all the community, really, we've managed to grow a bit and still be supportive of each other, helpful, thankful, we've been able to disagree on things respectfully without becoming toxic.

Here's to many more years of this.

Cheers!

[Lonkle]

@malvim That’s exactly how I feel about @nebulon and @girish. When I found out there was only two main developers, it blew my mind. I have so much respect for their company and the software their built / build - it’s probably why I’m so invested in making it the best it can be. I should cool it with the feature requests.

Cause they have enough on their plate, but despite that @nebulon has taken a lot of time out of his day to debate with me about a Cloudron procedure in another thread. It’s touching that he’s taken so much time to explain his perspective and consideration of my opinions.

@girish often goes out of his way to help me understand box code too. Like linking to individual lines in the git just to help me understand. Like what other creator of a huge project like this would do that for me? Answer: @girish is one of a kind!

My favorite thing about both of them though is sometimes, people will request something for box and they’ll have it done and committed in an hour for the next upgrade of Cloudron. I plan on packaging a lot more apps but this has been a fun and wild ride. Thanks to the @appdevs and @girish / @nebulon.

[marcusquinn]

On that subject, I wonder if there should be some separation of Forum Categories to help preserve their time for Features & Apps development, eg:

• Cloudron Support: Announcements
• Cloudron Support: Apps Setup & Issues
• Cloudron Support: Platform Feature Requests
• Cloudron Support: Platform Setup & Issues
• Community Support: Apps Wishlist
• Community Support: Custom Apps Packaging
• Community Support: General Discussion
• Community Support: Help Wanted or Offered

Might help to set attention expectations and notifications accordingly?

Help the community pick up some of the communications work.

@girish & @nebulon obviously still participating, but without expectation to look at every discussion every day unless specifically tagged

[Lonkle]

@marcusquinn Agreed, I don’t want time taken out of their days that another app Dev could help me with. Restructuring the forum in the way you proposed may be a way to get more off their plate and allow us to help one another easier. Let’s see what they think cause I can imagine they don’t want to be forum-ing every day like they currently do. Well, so do I now - but you guys are great.

[nebulon]

Great to hear all those kind words. If you want to help and support the project, the best way is actually to spread the word or write a blog post or some such. We generally don't have time to invest into that area since we are busy with product related work.

[Lonkle]

@nebulon said in Can I just say how wonderful it is getting to be part of this community?:

Great to hear all those kind words. If you want to help and support the project, the best way is actually to spread the word or write a blog post or some such. We generally don't have time to invest into that area since we are busy with product related work.

Will do, I've been meaning to start up a developer's blog anyway and reach out to the Wordpress community again (I left in 2016), that's partly why I'm so invested in your Wordpress app! But anyway, yeah, just keep it up, man. This is an amazing project. And thank you for open-sourcing it. You could have done this with a different business model that made me feel less secure (walled-guardian type things), but your API to Docker is AMAZING (debug mode is particularly interesting) and I think it's the future of the web so I'm with you guys to the very end. You could even close the source if you really wanted, I'll still support - as long as there's no obfuscation I'll stick around converting apps (which I do find kinda fun).

[marcusquinn]

Like this https://forum.cloudron.io/topic/2877/upvote-and-review-cloudron-on-all-the-alternative-to-type-websites-to-help-grow-the-team-and-community

[marcusquinn]

@Lonk If you haven't already tried it, I highly recommend Ghost for the blogging.

I know a contradiction from our WP based business setups - but hopefully you'll see why from my personal blog. Very refreshing to just focus on the content.

[Lonkle]

@marcusquinn said in Can I just say how wonderful it is getting to be part of this community?:

@Lonk If you haven't already tried it, I highly recommend Ghost for the blogging.

I know a contradiction from our WP based business setups - but hopefully you'll see why from my personal blog. Very refreshing to just focus on the content.

Tbh I never thought about it like that. I heard good things about Ghost. And Cloudron makes it easier than anything to try out, so I will. Thanks!

[jdaviescoates]

@ruihildt said in Can I just say how wonderful it is getting to be part of this community?:

All apps relying on push notifications will fail notifying.

I assume you mean all apps relying on Google for push notifications?

e.g. I've got Rocket.Chat installed on my phone and as I understand it get push notifications via their Cloud service, not Google. So I assume this would still work on LineageOS too, no?

[Lonkle]

@jdaviescoates If that's true than it would simply be on an app by app basis depending on what they use, but I'm guessing a lot of people would choose to stream their push notifications through Google. But I'm not an Android user daily. Apple mandates push notifications go through them, but I'm trying to find a way around that "public" limitation (with AltStore I can use whatever undocumented private APIs I can find).

[jdaviescoates]

@Lonk said in Can I just say how wonderful it is getting to be part of this community?:

This is an amazing project.

It really is.

And the fact @girish and @nebulon have managed to build such a great community here too, is almost as impressive as the platform itself.

@Lonk said in Can I just say how wonderful it is getting to be part of this community?:

And thank you for open-sourcing it. You could have done this with a different business model that made me feel less secure (walled-guardian type things), but your API to Docker is AMAZING (debug mode is particularly interesting) and I think it's the future of the web so I'm with you guys to the very end. You could even close the source if you really wanted, I'll still support - as long as there's no obfuscation I'll stick around converting apps (which I do find kinda fun).

Unless I've missed something, all the code was open-sourced, but is now closed, but (thankfully) with no obfuscation.

But I'm a little confused by your post, because you must know all this already, because you've contributed to the Why not make Cloudron fully open source again? thread

[Lonkle]

@jdaviescoates I thought only the dashboard and other things (a couple add-ons, the appstore) were closed source. But box (the main hub of all the things) is open source. Right? Which is why I thought the title of the post said "fully" in it.

[jdaviescoates]

@Lonk said in Can I just say how wonderful it is getting to be part of this community?:

But box (the main hub of all the things) is open source. Right?

Hopefully someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it is actually:
https://git.cloudron.io/cloudron/box/-/blob/master/LICENSE

@Lonk said in Can I just say how wonderful it is getting to be part of this community?:

Which is why I thought the title of the post said "fully" in it.

No, that was just because I'm aware some parts (I think the app packages) are open.

[jdaviescoates]

@nebulon said in Can I just say how wonderful it is getting to be part of this community?:

the best way is actually to spread the word or write a blog post or some such

I'm confident that if 6.0 goes open source we could generate significant press coverage

[Lonkle]

@jdaviescoates said in Can I just say how wonderful it is getting to be part of this community?:

@nebulon said in Can I just say how wonderful it is getting to be part of this community?:

the best way is actually to spread the word or write a blog post or some such

I'm confident that if 6.0 goes open source we could generate significant press coverage

It'd be great title for a headline. But I know this fight has been going on long before me - and the platform is non-obfuscated so I'm happy.

[jdaviescoates]

@Lonk said in Can I just say how wonderful it is getting to be part of this community?:

But I know this fight has been going on long before me

I definitely wouldn't call it a fight

That post is only from July, and as it says at the time I'd only been using Cloudron for 6 month (I first installed it on 10 Jan 2020) so I'm still a newbie myself really

[Lonkle]

@jdaviescoates Honestly you always felt like a vet to me. I didn't mean actual fight; just like ideology vs business model debacle that, I think a lot of people go through. There's no way the developer's would help me do box hot fix patches if they were against being OS, they just want to protect what's most important to them as a business.

It's somewhat similar to how the other open source project I contribute to works, the one I mentioned, altstore.io - AltStore only has 3 apps unless you pay a monthly subscriber fee for more features, but literally all the code is open source, anyone could do whatever they want with it, including easily pirate it. We don't even discourage it. But people pay just because they don't want any complexity at all. That's what Cloudron is. A "just works" system, so I think it would thrive open source, but it's also thriving now so whom I to judge. And I can definitely still say I'm happy with the current status quo of development in Cloudron even at the box level.

[marcusquinn]

@Lonk The platform to me is a convenience gateway to hosting apps & services, with the value in the access to the curated and supported app store.

[Lonkle]

I like how well thought out "sideloading" apps is. That's one of it's biggest benefits for me as a developer, but I see that from a user side too. Maybe that's why I like this. I've always liked sideloading apps.