Admin and support question
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Recently thinking of the same points you both made
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@subven said in Admin and support question:
Bonus question: Why is it that Cloudrons team did not grow over time? From what I can tell, the company is still operated by just our 2 main heroes + 1 contractor/freelancer that joined lately.
Not really interested in numbers like sales volume but I always asked myself why dont you guys hire someone to offload the basic monkey work like generall support and app updating + testing. Or, to go the other direction, someone who does marketing?
@plusone-nick said in Admin and support question:
Recently thinking of the same points you both made
Its these sort of things that I am actually quite interested in.
Like, if I was told that a certain number of new customers needed to join cloudron every year in order to fund a certain amount of work needed to be done, then I would be able to set out on this.@staff can I suggest creating some sort of public transparency page that states/shows these numbers and where we are at?
For example, if the community knew you needed 1000 new customers a year to be able to double the apps available on cloudron as well as funds to support and provide updates to these apps, and then we saw how many you currently have throughout the new year join - I think it would help empower people to start driving business to cloudron in a profound way.
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Tricky to answer this in a public forum
But we consider ourselves just an indie software company, we have no desire to take outside funding or grow for the sake of growth. There are plenty of software shops these days which are doing great with just 2 great people (many with just one even).But we hear you guys, the issue of app packaging remains and we agree we are a "bottle neck". The solution is not to hire 10 people and let them package everything out there. Packaging apps is not our business. The solution is multi part:
a) fix our packaging system to be more pragmatic to allow easy packaging. To this end, we already added things like https://docs.cloudron.io/packaging/manifest/#runtimedirs and https://docs.cloudron.io/packaging/manifest/#logpaths already. We will also make backup directories configurable next release.
b) allow other people to publish apps. this will help people develop, share and test quickly. People such as @MooCloud_Matt , @marcusquinn have already expressed interest in this. So, we will try this out.
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@girish said in Admin and support question:
Tricky to answer this in a public forum
But we consider ourselves just an indie software company, we have no desire to take outside funding or grow for the sake of growth. There are plenty of software shops these days which are doing great with just 2 great people (many with just one even).But we hear you guys, the issue of app packaging remains and we agree we are a "bottle neck". The solution is not to hire 10 people and let them package everything out there. Packaging apps is not our business. The solution is multi part:
a) fix our packaging system to be more pragmatic to allow easy packaging. To this end, we already added things like https://docs.cloudron.io/packaging/manifest/#runtimedirs and https://docs.cloudron.io/packaging/manifest/#logpaths already. We will also make backup directories configurable next release.
b) allow other people to publish apps. this will help people develop, share and test quickly. People such as @MooCloud_Matt , @marcusquinn have already expressed interest in this. So, we will try this out.
I hear you, and I dont think good things come when its growth for growth sake.
I view it more like this.
Cloudron provides a solution to a problem (self hosting with ease and control/privacy with your data).
Its becoming more and more difficult nowadays to not rely on those FAANGs out there, but your product provides that solution.
Like many others, I can navigate and understand code, but packaging an app is too time consuming to be able to do myself on top of keeping up with the upstream updates.If you are saying that you plan to allow anyone to drag a dockerized app into a converter and it is magically compatible with cloudron, then that alone is phenomenal.
But in many cases, you guys are a packaging company just as much as you are a community focused company, you are providing access to already existing apps packaged in a way that works with cloudron.
Unless you are actually saying that you would rather the community develop and control app updates and security issues, which is honestly a bit disheartening. I have trust in cloudron, I wouldnt have trust in a rando making a cloudron compatible app.
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@girish but how do you deal with the growing number of support cases? The more apps Cloudron offers, the more problems will occure and I especially don't mean Cloudron related problems. I often see people requesting direct help in cases that should be addressed upstream or let's say, are not "our" business.
Cloudron in a role as the middle man feels more like the front row of problemsolving and general support for growing admins. Not that I wouldn't appreciate the support from staff and the community but it also tends to cripple ressources.
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@privsec said in Admin and support question:
Unless you are actually saying that you would rather the community develop and control app updates and security issues, which is honestly a bit disheartening. I have trust in cloudron, I wouldnt have trust in a rando making a cloudron compatible app.
Ah sorry, I should have explained better. There is no plan to delegate all the app packaging to community, that would be suicidal
Think of the upcoming changes as more akin to ubuntu's universal repo or arch's AUR. Both have core supported packages. The alternate repos provide a way for users to share, test and use packages. Also, I don't think it's reasonable for ubuntu or arch to package all the things out there by themselves, it's just not possible. So, we just have to copy whatever best practices they already have. For example, one has to explicitly enabled the universal repo and give the appropriate warnings etc.
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@girish
How would you address this?
There is only so much time in the day, and the more users your platform gains, it makes sense to grow your support staff at a minimum.@girish but how do you deal with the growing number of support cases? The more apps Cloudron offers, the more problems will occure and I especially don't mean Cloudron related problems. I often see people requesting direct help in cases that should be addressed upstream or let's say, are not "our" business.
@girish said in Admin and support question:
@privsec said in Admin and support question:
Unless you are actually saying that you would rather the community develop and control app updates and security issues, which is honestly a bit disheartening. I have trust in cloudron, I wouldnt have trust in a rando making a cloudron compatible app.
Ah sorry, I should have explained better. There is no plan to delegate all the app packaging to community, that would be suicidal
Ok, I agree.
Think of the upcoming changes as more akin to ubuntu's universal repo or arch's AUR. Both have core supported packages. The alternate repos provide a way for users to share, test and use packages. Also, I don't think it's reasonable for ubuntu or arch to package all the things out there by themselves, it's just not possible. So, we just have to copy whatever best practices they already have. For example, one has to explicitly enabled the universal repo and give the appropriate warnings etc.
Do you have a roadmap of where you want to go?
I am a bit surprised hearing that being able to offload admin tasks onto others doesnt sound exciting.For example, if a single dev could bring an additional 4-7 packages each year and provide the support for them - this would drive more traffice to your platform, which would increase your overall income and take home, as well as providing a valuable resource to the world with support across all the timezones relevant.
Is there a reason why you dont want cloudron to grow in terms of team size?
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I've offered time-sharing for a veteran developer I work with and trust greatly that has packaged a few Cloudron apps now, and contributed core improvement suggestions. My guess is maybe the marketing side of Cloudon is needed to send more money these guys way to make these decisions easier. Everyone needs holidays!
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@girish said in Admin and support question:
Tricky to answer this in a public forum
Not if you default to transparency like Buffer and Cal.com do
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@marcusquinn said in Admin and support question:
I've offered time-sharing for a veteran developer I work with and trust greatly that has packaged a few Cloudron apps now, and contributed core improvement suggestions. My guess is maybe the marketing side of Cloudon is needed to send more money these guys way to make these decisions easier. Everyone needs holidays!
What do you mean by this?
Like hire a indie dev to work on packaging an app and having the community fund their efforts?
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@privsec I'm open to that. I think the "upvoting" method isn't working and we have too many apps in the appstore that serve the same purpose while other areas like ecommerce, etc. are lacking. I'd rather chip in to have an app packaged but I prefer if it's under Cloudron's supervision/control. Gofundme system that Cloudron staff run perhaps?
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@girish said in Admin and support question:
a) fix our packaging system to be more pragmatic to allow easy packaging. To this end, we already added things like https://docs.cloudron.io/packaging/manifest/#runtimedirs and https://docs.cloudron.io/packaging/manifest/#logpaths already. We will also make backup directories configurable next release.
I am looking forward to this!
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@BrutalBirdie said in Admin and support question:
@girish said in Admin and support question:
a) fix our packaging system to be more pragmatic to allow easy packaging. To this end, we already added things like https://docs.cloudron.io/packaging/manifest/#runtimedirs and https://docs.cloudron.io/packaging/manifest/#logpaths already. We will also make backup directories configurable next release.
I am looking forward to this!
It sounds and looks nice, but from someone inexperienced it means little to me.
I wish there was a handy video series or something on how to package an app for cloudron
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@humptydumpty said in Admin and support question:
@privsec I'm open to that. I think the "upvoting" method isn't working and we have too many apps in the appstore that serve the same purpose while other areas like ecommerce, etc. are lacking. I'd rather chip in to have an app packaged but I prefer if it's under Cloudron's supervision/control. Gofundme system that Cloudron staff run perhaps?
Yeah, Id support something like this.
I am honestly a bit shocked that there isn't any interest in growing the team or purposefully add to the packages in the app store for the cloudron team.
In terms of organizing, it would be nice if app wishlist was sorted into categories like apps, like finances, games, Business, etcetera.
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@privsec said in Admin and support question:
I wish there was a handy video series or something on how to package an app for cloudron
Uhmm not from the staff team but from appdev team by @fbartels
