I'm coming to the conclusion that community-owned and operated small clouds (co-ops) with easy onramps for self-hosting open source services like mail, storage, and VPN are the only way forward.
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I'm coming to the conclusion that community-owned and operated small clouds (co-ops) with easy onramps for self-hosting open source services like mail, storage, and VPN are the only way forward. Every corpo service is eventually going to make you ashamed to use it.
@mttaggart I am also one of those running servers for friends (mail, web, Nextcloud, Jitsi Meet, SearXNG etc) and I think about moving this to a private community, so I am not the only one taking care of the infrastructure.
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@ireneista @mttaggart @vfrmedia - so I think my take on this is more community first, tech second. Like, if the output is basically a support network and a set of tools to help individuals and community organisations self host, then I think I'd be quite happy with that.
Or maybe the solution is lower level services, e.g. shared server management with tools to make it easy for individual users to spin up their own Mastodon instance on their own domain.
VPNs are possibly a bit of a special case, and maybe the DEFCON folks reached the right conclusion there when they decided just to support Tor.
> "support network and a set of tools to help individuals and community organisations self host"
we have yet to articulate this with @coopcloud but i do believe we are going in this direction
the solidarity network is crucial to emphasise which goes beyond hollow top-down claims of "reuse" and "community"
unity upon strategic tool use has major benefits which stands in stark contract to the dominant reinvent the wheel tech hype cycles...
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@nelson@wetdry.world @mttaggart@infosec.exchange @HolosSocial@mastodon.social i think the way atproto does this is done very nicely, its very easy for non technical users
now it is rather decentralized right now as most people aren't too aware of the fact they can run their own pds. but thats not really a fault of the protocol@stag @nelson @HolosSocial So I think the PDS model of data transferability is neat. Blacksky shows what it takes to do all this without reliance on Bluesky. It's far from simple.
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@stag @nelson @HolosSocial So I think the PDS model of data transferability is neat. Blacksky shows what it takes to do all this without reliance on Bluesky. It's far from simple.
@mttaggart @stag @HolosSocial there are actual new attempts of using atproto without any relays and external architecture, things like "red dwarf" and even "wafrn" now adopt this mechanism
i am not exactly sure on how it works but as far as i understand, it performs activitypub-style federation but with proper backfilling and it's pretty darn efficient for small and big deployments alike
maybe my friend @alexia is better at explaining it than i am, she does work pretty closely to wafrn
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@mttaggart @stag @HolosSocial there are actual new attempts of using atproto without any relays and external architecture, things like "red dwarf" and even "wafrn" now adopt this mechanism
i am not exactly sure on how it works but as far as i understand, it performs activitypub-style federation but with proper backfilling and it's pretty darn efficient for small and big deployments alike
maybe my friend @alexia is better at explaining it than i am, she does work pretty closely to wafrn
@stag@mk.absturztau.be @HolosSocial@mastodon.social @mttaggart@infosec.exchange @nelson@wetdry.world
hi hello
to TL;DR this because I don't want to make too large of an explanation, for a good few months now instead of relying on a relay+appview we've instead been relying on https://www.microcosm.blue/ and more specifically Constellation as well as Jetstream (both of which amount to basically filtered down relays) which dramatically decreaess the amount of storage use, network bandwidth and CPU required to run wafrn, even if you were to do it full-stack setup with hosting constellation, jetstream, wafrn and a PDS on your own.
I think jetstream still uses a relay as an upstream but even those have become one hell of a lot cheaper to run thanks to more customizability to what is and isn't kept and for how long
point is all of the above can now run on a really shitty contabo vps for maybe like 3-4€ or whatever @gabboman pays
(that said, depending on circumstances it can still be more expensive than an activitypub server)
(do also note that the most expensive part of Bluesky's stack has always been the AppView, which provides an API, caching with redis, full-text indexing, a CDN…) -
@stag@mk.absturztau.be @HolosSocial@mastodon.social @mttaggart@infosec.exchange @nelson@wetdry.world
hi hello
to TL;DR this because I don't want to make too large of an explanation, for a good few months now instead of relying on a relay+appview we've instead been relying on https://www.microcosm.blue/ and more specifically Constellation as well as Jetstream (both of which amount to basically filtered down relays) which dramatically decreaess the amount of storage use, network bandwidth and CPU required to run wafrn, even if you were to do it full-stack setup with hosting constellation, jetstream, wafrn and a PDS on your own.
I think jetstream still uses a relay as an upstream but even those have become one hell of a lot cheaper to run thanks to more customizability to what is and isn't kept and for how long
point is all of the above can now run on a really shitty contabo vps for maybe like 3-4€ or whatever @gabboman pays
(that said, depending on circumstances it can still be more expensive than an activitypub server)
(do also note that the most expensive part of Bluesky's stack has always been the AppView, which provides an API, caching with redis, full-text indexing, a CDN…)@alexia @stag @gabboman @HolosSocial @nelson
Right. Jetstream does rely on an upstream Relay, and I think Bsky acquired Jetstream from an independent project. And yes, the AppView for large lexicons is the hard problem.
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@alexia @stag @gabboman @HolosSocial @nelson
Right. Jetstream does rely on an upstream Relay, and I think Bsky acquired Jetstream from an independent project. And yes, the AppView for large lexicons is the hard problem.
@nelson@wetdry.world @alexia@app.wafrn.net @mttaggart@infosec.exchange @HolosSocial@mastodon.social @stag@mk.absturztau.be
bsky centralized discourse again?
gona be quick.
each wafrn instance in https://join.wafrn.net is independent of bluesky.You can host a wafrn instance on a shitty contabo vps or even worse (gabboman xyz costs less than 20 euros a year).
We use external apis that are easily hosteable on a VERY EXPENSIVE raspberry pi. such extreme compute power required.
its a different architecture. and I will say what I always say: knowing how one works makes harder for your brain understanding the other one.
I say this as someone who has wrote implementations of both
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@nelson@wetdry.world @alexia@app.wafrn.net @mttaggart@infosec.exchange @HolosSocial@mastodon.social @stag@mk.absturztau.be
bsky centralized discourse again?
gona be quick.
each wafrn instance in https://join.wafrn.net is independent of bluesky.You can host a wafrn instance on a shitty contabo vps or even worse (gabboman xyz costs less than 20 euros a year).
We use external apis that are easily hosteable on a VERY EXPENSIVE raspberry pi. such extreme compute power required.
its a different architecture. and I will say what I always say: knowing how one works makes harder for your brain understanding the other one.
I say this as someone who has wrote implementations of both
@gabboman @alexia @mttaggart @HolosSocial @stag nononono this time it's different lol
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@gabboman @alexia @mttaggart @HolosSocial @stag nononono this time it's different lol
@nelson@wetdry.world @alexia@app.wafrn.net @mttaggart@infosec.exchange @HolosSocial@mastodon.social @stag@mk.absturztau.be
sorry ive seen it too many times and fedi is very negative about it. i posted without reading too much, im busy making wafrn worse
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@nelson@wetdry.world @alexia@app.wafrn.net @mttaggart@infosec.exchange @HolosSocial@mastodon.social @stag@mk.absturztau.be
sorry ive seen it too many times and fedi is very negative about it. i posted without reading too much, im busy making wafrn worse
@gabboman @alexia @mttaggart @HolosSocial @stag that's the spirit!
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I'm coming to the conclusion that community-owned and operated small clouds (co-ops) with easy onramps for self-hosting open source services like mail, storage, and VPN are the only way forward. Every corpo service is eventually going to make you ashamed to use it.
@mttaggart yes!
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I'm coming to the conclusion that community-owned and operated small clouds (co-ops) with easy onramps for self-hosting open source services like mail, storage, and VPN are the only way forward. Every corpo service is eventually going to make you ashamed to use it.
@mttaggart I recently came to the same conclusion. I love self-hosting but it's not for everyone.
A friend and I put together this site to gauge interest. Would love any feedback you have.
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@mttaggart I recently came to the same conclusion. I love self-hosting but it's not for everyone.
A friend and I put together this site to gauge interest. Would love any feedback you have.
@mttaggart This whole thread is amazing, btw.
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I'm coming to the conclusion that community-owned and operated small clouds (co-ops) with easy onramps for self-hosting open source services like mail, storage, and VPN are the only way forward. Every corpo service is eventually going to make you ashamed to use it.
@mttaggart I hate to admit it but this is how I've been the whole time. I had a friend whose father was one of the biggest cattle ranchers. Hundreds of thousands of numbered heads, as far as the eye could see in massive dirt lots with industrial feed and killing machines. But when they wanted to eat beef, they went to their little grassy backyard and brought the slowly raised, hand-fed cow with a name like "Bessie" over to their good friend the butcher. "We will eat Bessie, never from the lots".
True story.
And as much as I worked for the biggest operations (and still do, consulting) I always ran my own servers. Web log has been my own Linux machine since 1995, always self-hosted. Mail server too. But I understand why some people can't imagine getting their hands involved, thinking deep like how to care for and yet say goodbye to Bessie instead of just ripping open a package of prepared meals.
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@mttaggart This whole thread is amazing, btw.
@stanley Thanks for this! I'll give it a read ASAP.
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I'm coming to the conclusion that community-owned and operated small clouds (co-ops) with easy onramps for self-hosting open source services like mail, storage, and VPN are the only way forward. Every corpo service is eventually going to make you ashamed to use it.
@mttaggart and if they don't, they'll enshitify until you can't stand them anymore. I've come to that conclusion and yours over the last couple years.
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> "support network and a set of tools to help individuals and community organisations self host"
we have yet to articulate this with @coopcloud but i do believe we are going in this direction
the solidarity network is crucial to emphasise which goes beyond hollow top-down claims of "reuse" and "community"
unity upon strategic tool use has major benefits which stands in stark contract to the dominant reinvent the wheel tech hype cycles...
@d1 @philcowans @mttaggart @vfrmedia @coopcloud that's good to hear, and we definitely hope it goes well
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@mttaggart I am also one of those running servers for friends (mail, web, Nextcloud, Jitsi Meet, SearXNG etc) and I think about moving this to a private community, so I am not the only one taking care of the infrastructure.
@askaaron @mttaggart This is the way. Find several people already running small personal clouds and club them together so they each can be responsible for a smaller number of services. If you do that, maybe you get reliable machines and enough capacity that you can serve more people.
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@mttaggart A throwback to the 1990's/early 00's when you'd share a box running FreeBSD or Solaris colo-ed where we knew somebody and kick in what amounted to beer money.
@rlonstein @mttaggart Yep. Old-school hosting.
Kinda like tildes these days, when you think about it.
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@jumpingjackrussell Don't try to solve every problem at once.
@mttaggart @jumpingjackrussell Agreed. That's a "this porblem is way too big to solve" idea killer.
Think BBS. Then think BBS net.
