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@strypey @futuresprog @lightweight @puck @Niall @essjax @stephen @oseiler @Kay @bob @yunohost You can buy a Synology box from any number of Aotearoa New Zealand retailers and provision it with whatever hard drives you choose (thankfully Synology pulled back from their plans to limit this).

Apart from the remote access feature there's no operational off-shore dependency, and you don't have to use that feature; you can set up Dynamic DNS or get a static IP address.

The mobile apps that give you access to various NAS services (video, audio, files) could be compromised if you have a Google or Apple mobile device.

mahadevank

@mahadevank@mastodon.social replied · last week

@Niall hi Raglan, let's connect? I'd love to help you out with this.

We run a platform that makes it easy to host open-source solutions, we designed it for non-tech users.

Our servers are in India, but we can easily setup an account for you in any AWS region of your choice.

Raglan Niall :lk: :tinoflag:

@Niall@mastodon.nz replied · last week

@mahadevank AWS?! Thanks but that's kinda missing the point.

mahadevank

@mahadevank@mastodon.social replied · last week

@Niall that's step #1 - digital surveillance still disappears the moment you run your own software, and the data belongs to you, even if you're on AWS.

We are actively working with other options and as soon as we have a provider that integrates well, we'll be off AWS as well.

Coming off Big Tech is a process. If we try to do it all in one go, it gets very difficult.

Raglan Niall :lk: :tinoflag:

@Niall@mastodon.nz replied · last week

@mahadevank yes, it's a process, you're right. If AWS is involved at present then at present I'm out, sorry.

mahadevank

@mahadevank@mastodon.social replied · last week

@Niall Not a problem, and thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. I’ll add an additional vote for hosting outside of big tech on our product roadmap

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied · yesterday

@mahadevank
> I’ll add an additional vote for hosting outside of big tech on our product roadmap

Seriously planning a move off AWS is the best way to find out of you *can* move off AWS. Even if you decide they're your best option for now.

AWS have all sorts of proprietary ways of doing things, which they justify as helping customers in some way, but it's really just to lock them in.

I'm with @Niall though. A dependence on AWS is a liability.

essjax

@essjax@essjax.com replied · last week

@Niall Just a slightly different option: Synology servers come with a whole bunch of ready to go services. Photos, music, backups, office suite with browser apps. You can host your own without having to get technical.
It's not open source but you pay once for the box then you own it.

leighelse{}

@leighelse@mastodon.nz replied · last week

@essjax @Niall We run a Synology box that does most of these things for us. However, in the last two years Synology has made moves which would put me off buying their product again, and we've avoided updating to the latest OS version because we would lose functionality we depend on.

There are, however, alternative NAS platforms which are just as good and not in danger of being enshittified.

Raglan Niall :lk: :tinoflag:

@Niall@mastodon.nz replied · last week

@leighelse @essjax yes, you lot kindly spent some time introducing me to Synology last time I tried to get off Google. Then they almost immediately pulled that shady move and I ran away to focus on other life challenges instead.
I really have a dislike for computer admin. In my perfect world I'd buy some kind of a NAS with enough redundancy to survive a simple local hardware failure such as an HD. I would only need to plug it in and it would work as easily as my fridge.It would have a small portion dedicated to torrent-like storage for reciprocally backing up other people's data so we would all have decentralized peer to peer disaster recovery. There would be some friendly, knowledgeable person that i paid fairly to migrate me to this and to maintain the infrastructure so that I didn't have to do anything but use it.
I realise this is never going to happen but I can dream!

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied · yesterday

(1/3)

@Niall
> I realise this is never going to happen

Why not?

All the core technologies needed to provide the products and services you describe already exist. There are plenty of people like yourself who desperately want them to, and are prepared to pay. There are plenty of people who'd be happy to make a living supplying them, rather than working EvilCorp jobs.

We can do this.

@leighelse @essjax @lightweight @stephen
@puck
@futuresprog @oseiler @Kay

Andrew

@puck@mastodon.nz replied · yesterday

@Niall @leighelse @essjax @lightweight @stephen @futuresprog @oseiler @Kay @strypey How about the FreedomBox?

https://www.freedombox.org/

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied · 24 hours ago

@puck
> How about the FreedomBox?

Like LibreServer and YUNOhost, this is a great project. But it's still aimed at home tinkerers with either a fixed IP address, or the knowledge (or time to acquire it) to set up Dynamic DNS.

A preconfigured box you could buy in Aotearoa is close to a turnkey solution, but that too needs a service to assemble and sell it, and provide customer support.

@Niall @leighelse @essjax @lightweight @stephen @futuresprog @oseiler @Kay @bob @yunohost

1+ more replies (not shown)

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied · yesterday

(2/2)

The main thing we're lacking is a way to coordinate all these people, in ways that bring the required organizations into existence. It's a classic collective action problem.

Funding to cover the startup costs would help. But anyone likely to be interested in supplying that - in enough volume to move the dial - will likely want evidence of a) demand, b) capacity for sustainable supply, c) a realistic plan to bring it all together.

Which brings us back to the collective action problem.

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied · yesterday

(3/3)

We can continue chatting about the issues here. But to move from ephemeral chat to actionable plans, I think the discussion needs to move to a more permanent and discoverable venue.

For anyone willing to put some time into talking through the nuts and bolts of how to coordinate the transition so many of us want to happen, I've opened forum a discussion here;

https://community.iridescent.nz/t/supplying-ethical-tech-products-and-services-in-aotearoa/166

Oliver Seiler

@oseiler@mastodon.nz replied · last week

@Niall I second Nextcloud - it works really well and you can find commercial hosting providers (not sure if nz based exist but if not plenty of EU based options).

Oliver Seiler

@oseiler@mastodon.nz replied · last week

@Niall I run Nextcloud on my nas which keeps all data nicely contained and it's not too hard to set up if (and I know that might well be the show stopper) you know your way around some docker basics

Andrew

@puck@mastodon.nz replied · last week

@Niall @oseiler TechnologyWise offer a managed NextCloud service running on Catalyst Cloud. All fully sovereign. It is focused at business use though, perhaps still drop them a line?

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied · yesterday

@puck
> TechnologyWise offer a managed NextCloud service running on Catalyst Cloud

Good to know. They have a list of "Open Source Alternatives" here, but TBH it seems a bit dated;

https://www.technologywise.co.nz/latest-news-items/item/6-free-software-alternatives

Also they name the 2 columns "commercial" and "alternatives", which is very early-2000s, and really grinds my gears. MatterMost, for example, is on their "alternatives" list, but it would be plain wrong to say they're not commercial. They don't even publish full source code.

@Niall @oseiler

Open Source Alternatives

We've been working with Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) for nearly 20 years. Here is a list of common proprietary software products and their FOSS equivalents: Commercial Alternative Access-It, MUSAC, SirsiDynix Koha Library Software Adobe Acrobat PDF Creator Adobe Audition Audacity Adobe I...

Andrew

@puck@mastodon.nz replied · 21 hours ago

@Niall @oseiler @strypey The date on that post is 2020. I'll suggest they update it, and provide your feedback. Thank you.

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied · 21 hours ago

@puck
> I'll suggest they update it, and provide your feedback

Feel free to link them to my post, and provide my email address (in my profile).

If you think they're really interested, I'm happy to email them a list of software suggestions. For a start, I'd suggest "proprietary" instead of "commercial" and "replacements" instead of "alternatives".

Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿

@lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied · last week

@Niall my replacement for Google photos is Immich - https://immich.app - I've been using it for a few years for automatic phone photos & video backup (can share media with family & friends, or even let them use my immich for their own backups as well). It's superb. A couple of us are exploring offering it commercially among other services, right here in Aotearoa. And yeah, NextCloud is also an excellent option. Happy to chat about it (or give you a 'walk through') if you're interested.

Phil Tanner :tinoflag:

@Phil_Tanner@mastodon.philtanner.com replied · last week

@Niall @lightweight I'm also a recent convert to (self hosted) Immich and NextCloud to ditch Google Photos and Dropbox respectively.

I'm also running SyncThing to backup the data to other places

Neil Munro

@nlmunro@mastodon.social replied · last week

@Niall Jottacloud is good (Norway) and covers photos and files pretty well. For more comprehensive photos, immich is amazing, but not turnkey and requires tech knowledge to install.

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied · yesterday

(1/2)

@nlmunro
> Jottacloud is good

They're transparent about the Free Code libraries their service depends on, which is great;

https://docs.jottacloud.com/en/articles/2096789-third-party-libraries

These seem to be their code repos;

https://github.com/jotta

But I'm struggling to figure out whether their full software stack is under free licenses. I can't see anything on their website that clarifies.

@Niall

Third Party Libraries | Jottacloud Help Center

Our cloud service runs on great open source software

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied · yesterday

(2/2)

RMS would say it's only the apps and JS you run on your own devices that matter in this respect. In a sense, if you can't use their service with your choice of apps, or keeping using their apps with a different service, you're still locked in even if 100% of the software they use us under a free license.

But I guess it's akin to seeing an organic certification on a food product. It's not a guarantee that it's sustainable or health my, but it suggests the company cares about these things.

Aaron Brick — אהרן בריק

@aarbrk@mstdn.mx replied · last week

@Niall I support your goal and I hope you succeed. Hypothesis: the reason no alternatives are exactly “turnkey” is that Google has invested so heavily in the user interfaces and the integration of their many products, that it's hard to compete with the convenience they offer.

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied · 2 days ago

@aarbrk
> Hypothesis: the reason no alternatives are exactly “turnkey” is that Google has invested so heavily in the user interfaces

Other possible reasons;

a) BorgSoft and Goggle strong-arming hardware vendors into making devices hard to put a different OS on

b) You can't just download and install server software yet. Even with tools like Docker, deployment is still an expert task. Plus you need a server, a dedicated computer with good net connection and a fixed IP (or Dynamic DNS).

@Niall

Paul Kater

@paulk@writing.exchange replied · last week

@Niall If your issues mainly is around files and photos, look at a Nextcloud provider. I can't tell what else you need from your description. Online Office? Magic?

Raglan Niall :lk: :tinoflag:

@Niall@mastodon.nz replied · last week

@paulk i don't need online office. I need a phone solution, as stated. I don't know if you're being facetious with your magic comment so I'll ignore it.

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied · yesterday

@Niall
> if you're being facetious with your magic comment

Maybe @paulk meant Magisk?

"... a suite of open source software for customizing Android ..."

https://github.com/topjohnwu/Magisk

GitHub

GitHub - topjohnwu/Magisk: The Magic Mask for Android

The Magic Mask for Android. Contribute to topjohnwu/Magisk development by creating an account on GitHub.

Paul Kater

@paulk@writing.exchange replied · yesterday

@strypey Nope, I meant magic, but nice to learn about Magisk!

@Niall

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied · 24 hours ago

@paulk
> Nope, I meant magic

Then I don't understand what your point was either. If you were implying that an online office using Free Code would be magic, that's possible with OnlyOffice. Our demo combines it with NextCloud, to create a pretty good GoggleDocs/Drive replacement;

http://hub.iridescent.nz/

Online office in a web app is also possible with LibreOffice;

https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Using_LibreOffice_in_a_Web_Browser

@Niall

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