˗ˏˋ Doug Belshaw ˎˊ˗ 💥☠️✊:I'm looking to talk to someone, ideally from an agency or small cooperative, who has switched to Nextcloud.
I'm interested in how people have things like Time Tracking and Deck configured for project/client work.
(please boost!)
Pretty telling that despite ~50 boosts of the above post, it seems there's not many people *using* Nextcloud? 🤔
If @weareopencoop do end up using it, perhaps we should write a guide that starts where this one from @homegrown ends?
Dave Lane 
🇳🇿@dajbelshaw I know heaps of people using it here in NZ. I've run 4 of them. @weareopencoop @homegrown
@dajbelshaw sorry, that should be "I run 4 of them" and that's just right now. I set them up for other folks & orgs from time to time, too. It's critical infrastructure for me and the orgs I represent. Replaces Google Apps entirely. in@[email protected] @homegrown
@dajbelshaw @homegrown (actually, counting again, I run 5, and recently shut down a 6th demo instance)...
mike_hales 💔*!?¿*@lightweight @dajbelshaw @homegrown
As a small coop, meet.coop runs a NextCloud instance. It's essential as a repo for docs, internal and external (and Markdown is very handy, when the NextCloud app is working properly). But imho as a basis for teamwork collaboration (as distinct from doc sharing) I wouldn't say it was wonderful.
As a small coop, meet.coop runs a NextCloud instance. It's essential as a repo for docs, internal and external (and Markdown is very handy, when the NextCloud app is working properly). But imho as a basis for teamwork collaboration (as distinct from doc sharing) I wouldn't say it was wonderful.
@lightweight @dajbelshaw @homegrown
But then, I wouldn't say that shared calendars and kanban-ish apps were incredibly wonderful in general, either. The NextCloud toolset works. It's a kludge. Just like the web!
The browser UI is pretty stale? Without local editing in a proper editor, the web UI would be a complete pain? The web interface for OpenOffice is awful.
Grow Your Own Services 🌱@mike_hales @lightweight @dajbelshaw
Are there any alternatives you'd prefer?
@homegrown
fair Q!
The short answer is, I've not assembled a set of tools that I individually feel have good affordances, which have enough in common UI-wise to work nicely as a toolset. Compromises all the time! Multiple platforms in the browser seems like a nice idea until the web UI comes into play, and some then are pretty inelegant or overcomplex. For me the UI of OnlyOffice in NextCloud falls into that class.
1of3 ?
@lightweight
@dajbelshaw
@homegrown 2of3 ?
I have an 'expanded trinity' as a framework.
https://learnstack.wiki.cafe/view/welcome-visitors/view/learning-space-and-toolstack/view/trinity/view/extended-trinity
But don't know how to populate that with a fully satisfactory set of tools. The categories are not watertight - that old workhorse Discourse for example can be made to do several jobs (not all of them equally cleanly).
@lightweight @dajbelshaw
I have an 'expanded trinity' as a framework.
https://learnstack.wiki.cafe/view/welcome-visitors/view/learning-space-and-toolstack/view/trinity/view/extended-trinity
But don't know how to populate that with a fully satisfactory set of tools. The categories are not watertight - that old workhorse Discourse for example can be made to do several jobs (not all of them equally cleanly).
@lightweight @dajbelshaw
@homegrown 3of4 ?
What @lightweight says about cost and improvement rate in nextCloud may be true. I'm not an admin, and don't deal with issues of those kinds.
But as a user, NextCloud's toolset for me distinctly unimpresses. Putting them under the same web UI doesn't make for either fluent navigation or elegant UI imo. The basic virtue is Cloud fileshare I feel - and navigation for that is klunky? I prefer to write in Markdown and that's good enough but only just.
@homegrown 4of4
'Serious' collaboration/coproduction tools like task allocation and progress, contribution accounting, value chain management and review, mapping tools, etc (getting into 'Specials' in the expanded trinity above https://learnstack.wiki.cafe/specials.html) aren't well provided for in general it seems to me, and certainly not in the NextCloud bundle.
@bhaugen will have views here I think.
@lightweight @dajbelshaw
@lightweight commented
> aren't afraid of hosting your own (if you're a tech business, you shouldn't be)
meet.coop is a kinda tech business (platform coop, provisioning video meeting spaces) and we have great admins. But in my broader experience admins are not necessarily great at figuring what the toolsets will look-and-feel like for non-geek users. Often may be prepared to hack & juggle more than lay people are. And favour admin rather than use considerations?
Yes, that's certainly true. That said, under normal circumstances, the selection of tools for a business is handled by non-technical people, and we see businesses developing a 100% dependence on finely polished bona fide turds like MSFT Sharepoint... so it cuts both ways. The way I see it, if a business has internal tech ability it's immediately an outlier, with advantages over its competitors. 1/2 @bhaugen @dajbelshaw
@mike_hales I agree, tools can be rough to start with, but can also be tuned to be precisely what a business needs (the feedback loop can be very tight and responsive!), rather than the normal pattern (usually a US-based corp designing speculatively for a global audience): changing businesses practices to suit the very expensive tool (creating complete lock-in). I far prefer the former option... 2/2
@lightweight
> changing [work] practices to suit the . . tool
This is a powerful dynamic for sure. We users spend way too much energy learning to be servants to the tools we get given!
Even in a 'tech' coop like meet.coop, our admins are concerned with running our production stack. We have zero development capacity for the internal toolset. We get by on NextCloud Discourse Matrix chat Kimai Sogo mail Wordpress - hosted for us by an external (coop) organisation
@lightweight
There's very rarely a proper and properly informed dialogue about this (users easily get lost in the multiplicity of apps and dont see enough of them 'in anger' to make good judgements about their affordances).
So admins tend to get their way, and build the stack that looks good to them? Who knows what a good toolset for collaboration really would look like! FLOSS tools tend to be trickled-down from geek domains, not developed to meet users' needs?
@homegrown @bhaugen @dajbelshaw
There's very rarely a proper and properly informed dialogue about this (users easily get lost in the multiplicity of apps and dont see enough of them 'in anger' to make good judgements about their affordances).
So admins tend to get their way, and build the stack that looks good to them? Who knows what a good toolset for collaboration really would look like! FLOSS tools tend to be trickled-down from geek domains, not developed to meet users' needs?
@homegrown @bhaugen @dajbelshaw
As I see it, end users seldom know what's possible, and only know the tools they've had foisted upon them. Most are more attached to what they know than what they could know - they value familiarity over quality. It's up to the 'geeks' who understand what's possible to innovate and demonstrate the value of that to end users. 1/2
@homegrown @bhaugen @dajbelshaw
@mike_hales I have more confidence in the affinity of people within the same community or company to work with feedback than working across the world where a multinational corp tells you what you're going to use and tells you it's the best for you. (while making extra revenue by surveilling you and actively engaging in influencing your gov't to hamper its competitors illegal wherever possible) 2/2 @homegrown @bhaugen @dajbelshaw
@lightweight
For sure I don't want to see anybody depending on the corporates for their tools. But a 'tech' coop (platform coop) can easily have zero internal capacity for developing or configuring the internal toolstack. I would say admins generally - FLOSS or otherwise - are pretty poor at building a community of well-informed users, capable of driving sensible choices of tools and affordances - even if admins were paid the hours to do that kind of work.
@homegrown @bhaugen @dajbelshaw
For sure I don't want to see anybody depending on the corporates for their tools. But a 'tech' coop (platform coop) can easily have zero internal capacity for developing or configuring the internal toolstack. I would say admins generally - FLOSS or otherwise - are pretty poor at building a community of well-informed users, capable of driving sensible choices of tools and affordances - even if admins were paid the hours to do that kind of work.
@homegrown @bhaugen @dajbelshaw
I wonder what FLOSS-based platform coops (and platform-building coops) feel about being the poor relations when it comes to their own internal tools? Do we tend to fall back on cumulative years of sweat equity - the 'free' but poorly coordinated and discontinuous labour of committed community members, FLOSS developers and coop members - for the configuring of our own means of doing what we hope will be good work?
@mike_hales if you're wanting to prove the viability of co-ops, then yes, I'd say you have to be "prefigurative": the means you use to achieve your ends must be compatible with those ends if you want to inspire others. In other words (to borrow a rather coarse 'startup' phrase), we have to eat our own dog-food. @FreeScholar @jamiem @Wtebbens @homegrown @bhaugen @dajbelshaw
bhaugen@lightweight @mike_hales @FreeScholar @jamiem @Wtebbens @homegrown @dajbelshaw
This is another fascinating thread, following closely after that strategy thread: (which I hope I can find again...)
Anyway, consider a cooperative project to create viable infrastructure for cooperatives. Why not? @bonfire would be a good starting point and they have already offered to work on it.
@mike_hales
I would argue that a tech/platform coop without internal development capacity is missing a mission-critical core capability. It's a bit like an artistic coop without anyone able to craft suitable branding... There are some things an organisation with a long-term aspiration shouldn't outsource.
@homegrown @bhaugen @dajbelshaw
I would argue that a tech/platform coop without internal development capacity is missing a mission-critical core capability. It's a bit like an artistic coop without anyone able to craft suitable branding... There are some things an organisation with a long-term aspiration shouldn't outsource.
@homegrown @bhaugen @dajbelshaw