ZackAug 23, 2022
e. hashman 
Here's a thought: self-hosting all technology, a common end goal of many software freedom enthusiasts, has nothing to do with freedom. Rather, it's the logical end of hyper-individualism applied to source code.
Aug 23, 2022 at 3:52pmWeb
Show threade. hashman Aug 23, 2022

Humans have lived and thrived in communities since time immemorial. We specialize because it allows us to scale; no one person can master everything that allows us to have a happy, healthy life.

You may be able to self host a few pieces of software meaningful to you, but hosting your entire digital life by yourself? Well, we already recognize that we can't write all the code, or build all the hardware ourselves---that's why open source is important. So then why the fixation on trying to run everything ourselves?

When software was far simpler in decades past, that might have been a feasible goal! But it hasn't been for years.

Show threade. hashman Aug 23, 2022

When I participated in approving the Cryptographic Autonomy License, the only FOSS license that provides users guarantees of data portability, I thought that this conversation might start to shift. That we'd recognize that running distributed systems at the scale of what users have come to expect cannot be performed by individuals, and that we needed to shift the conversation towards how we can protect users' digital autonomy and inherent rights without them needing to become systems administrators.

Yet there has been no forward progress. I just can't associate myself with "software freedom" while it cares more about software, a tool, than the rights of people, the only reason the tool exists.

Show threade. hashman Aug 23, 2022

Where are the radical software collectives self-hosting privacy-conscious for activists and the marginalized? Shout out to riseup, but that's nowhere near the experience you might get on a megacorp's service.

The free software that exists isn't up to task. And if we wrote better options, people still can't run it alone. Where's that vision of digital autonomy? How do we get there, given the cost of labour?

Show threade. hashman Dec 7, 2022

Since this thread is doing the rounds again, I wanted to add a bit more detail to the "cost of labour" issue. The investments FOSS projects see compared to venture capital backed projects are mere crumbs. I gave an example here, comparing Twitter itself, the Block Party app for Twitter, and Mastodon: https://kith.kitchen/@ehashman/109396726220858543

Large-scale software projects cost hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars to build and operate. Even "small" but polished apps require massive investment of time and labour. It is neither sustainable nor realistic to burn out a handful of volunteer, part-time, or underemployed developers on building FOSS technologies.

If we value this, as a society, we need to dedicate real resources to the problem, not people's (non-existent) spare time.

e. hashman (@[email protected])

Given the ubiquity of extremely well-engineered social media technology available at no cost to users I see frequently discussed, it might be useful to note: - Twitter is 16 years old, raised nearly 13 billion USD in venture capital, employed thousands of engineers, and had a successful IPO. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/twitter - Block Party is four years old, raised nearly 5 million USD in seed dollars, and employs multiple people full-time. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/block-party-4a94 Developing technology is not free.

Kith Kitchen
Show threade. hashman Dec 8, 2022

Another example: Project Mushroom is trying to kickstart improvements to Mastodon and a fully paid support team and help desk. They estimate costs at 200k for ~2 months of expenses. They're in a lower cost labour market in Canada. https://newsletters.projectmushroom.xyz/real-talk-and-some-great-news/ And their kickstarter is only about 50% funded coming up on the final week.

Even if they were paying two senior full-time devs below market wages, 200k doesn't even cover a year of work. They're not even federated yet and are hitting scaling problems and frequent server errors.

Running services of this complexity and scale have high costs. Running them *well* is even more costly.

Real talk on Project Mushroom β€” and some *great* news πŸ„

Contribute to our Kickstarter! Project Mushroom is moving full-steam ahead, and we've got some super exciting news to share! πŸ„πŸ„πŸ„ But first, some real talk: Since Friday, we've raised $29,102 and counting from 698+ backers in our Kickstarter. That means we've got 24 days left to raise $170,000+ and

Project Mushroom
Show threade. hashman Dec 9, 2022
What do you do when _you_ are the means of production but you still don't control your own time until food, rent, and healthcare are covered?
Show threade. hashman Dec 9, 2022
Thinking of Steve Klabnik but I don't think he ever made it over to fedi :(
Show threadBerkubernetusDec 9, 2022
@ehashman mind you, I hadn't heard from him for ages on TheBird either.
Show threadjulia ferraioliDec 9, 2022
@ehashman weep?
Show threadWoozle HypertwinDec 9, 2022

@ehashman I've been quietly agitating for a Public Interest Software Development Corps, or something along those lines, for quite some time.

The hard part I keep running into is doing the whole bootstrapping thing of putting together a team that can build stuff so you can attract donations without first having the team build something to prove that it works.

See:

Software Uprising - Woozle Writes Code

Show threadKevix (he/him) :debian:Dec 9, 2022
@ehashman i was thinking how people expect social media to have gratis user costs, high availability at the expense of surveilance capitalism. Free software fediverse requires THE USERs to pay. They are not conditioned for that.
Show threadXorOwlDec 7, 2022

@ehashman wow this thread generated some complicated thoughts faster than i can articulate back to human speech.
I kinda disagree with the fundamental foundation of the argument, but highly agree with where you took it and the end point of needing software that communicates risks and processes to the layman.....

Complicated thoughts i cant articulate yet

Show threadmhoyeAug 23, 2022
@ehashman I wrote a bit about this here: https://exple.tive.org/blarg/2018/11/09/the-evolution-of-open/
The Evolution Of Open | blarg

Show threadJohn GoerzenAug 24, 2022
@mhoye @ehashman This is a deeply insightful and thought-provoking piece. The two notions of openness -- I can see that clearly. In fact, I have seen it in #Debian as it's come from the traditional Free Software approach and has had a multi-year journey towards the openness viewed through the lens of accessibility and experience. Still some ways to go there; the progress has been slow but notable.
Show threadAngleπŸ–‡Aug 23, 2022
@ehashman Mmm, I agree with the sentiment. Cooperatives are hard to set up though, harder than just hosting the thing yourself. So, we need some kind of infrastructure to support it? Like, cooperatives that specialize in helping people set up and organize other cooperatives? It's not an easy problem though. :/
Show threadΩ„Ψ§ Ψ’Ω„Ω‡Ψ© ، Ω„Ψ§ Ψ³Ψ§Ψ―Ψ©Aug 23, 2022
@Angle @ehashman this is roughly the problem domain that i'm trying to address with my tomo project.

https://xj-ix.luxe/posts/2017-11-16-kill-the-web/
https://xj-ix.luxe/posts/2019-10-17-programming-for-the-next-billion/
https://xj-ix.luxe/posts/2022-02-02-notation-in-tomo-el-fuego/
https://xj-ix.luxe/posts/2022-02-05-tomo-degrowth/
https://xj-ix.luxe/posts/2022-02-21-off-system-primer/

i believe that a dramatic paradigm shift is need to make this work though, so its slow going. i'm inspired by aaron hsu's work (briefly summarized in this wiki page https://sunshinegardens.org/~xj9/wiki/abstraction-considered-harmful/ in short, we need code that is at least an order of magnitude shorter in all domains. we need a networking substrate that is both distributed and decentralized that i easy for end-users to program to meet their needs. as long as we have a class of developers between people and solving their informatics problems, we will always be beholden to institutions for cybernetic capabilities.
/g/ kill the web

we must always have old memories and young hopes..

Show thread(((Baslow)))Aug 23, 2022
@ehashman
I've been throwing around the hashtag #SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity for a few months now but, old and tired as I am, I've found myself exhausted and discouraged by how foundational so many people assume possessive individualism to be. They understand "community" to be accessory at best, oppressive at worst; not the *source* of meaning and *constitutive* of self so much as an arena where those things are amplified and/or diluted.
Show threadj@mastodonAug 23, 2022

@ehashman

You have collectives popping up in France, Spain, Portugal, other places in Europe.

The software available right now enables people to do this. The issue I'm facing as a promoter of these technologies is that even most activists don't care to take action until the danger of persecution is imminent.

Show threadocdtrekkieAug 24, 2022
@ehashman The project I work on, Sandstorm.io, is designed to offer a really easy way for nontechnical users to securely run apps on a server without compromising other users on that server. We need a lot of help (and funds) though to really get to where we should be.
Show threade. hashman Aug 24, 2022
@ocdtrekkie I mentioned Sandstorm in a few of the replies, I know of it from when Asheesh was working on it :)
Show threadocdtrekkieAug 24, 2022

@ehashman Asheesh is a legend, I am glad I met him IRL once. I learned a *lot* from how he approaches software.

We're still trying to keep things moving but it's a lot slower without a startup behind it.

Show threadAurynn ShawAug 25, 2022
@ehashman this is a really interesting thread
Show threadJon ☎️Aug 25, 2022

@ehashman I think my own view on this is something like: self-hostability is necessary but not sufficient for communities to effectively provide digital services to their members. It’s not the end goal in itself, but if community organizers didn’t have e.g. web servers available to them and had to write their own every time, we’d all be worse off.

You mentioned it in the replies but IMO Sandstorm is the closest to getting the digital autonomy side of things right. Needs work though.

Show threadDanny (he/they)Dec 2, 2022
@ehashman i've seen the May First Movement Technology, maybe Disroot? I thought I remember bookmarking something associated with the scientists rebellion but I can't find that
Show threadyuvipandaDec 7, 2022
@ehashman @downey this is exactly what we are trying to build at 2i2c.org, scoped to a smallish subfield. With deep recognition and awareness of the current state of the world and focusing on user empowerment. Without having to sacrifice ourselves on the altar of principle. Maybe we will succeed or maybe we won’t but we will definitely try. Makes me happy :)
Show threadJames Just JamesDec 7, 2022

@ehashman Love this comment. I think one of the solutions is radically better and autonomous automation tools. Which is one reason I am building https://github.com/purpleidea/mgmt/

But I need help to finish it.

GitHub - purpleidea/mgmt: Next generation distributed, event-driven, parallel config management!

Next generation distributed, event-driven, parallel config management! - purpleidea/mgmt

GitHub
Show threadtea 🌺Dec 7, 2022
@ehashman Does anyone know of a Discord community focused on self-hosting innovations? I have some ideas and I'm working on one aspect of the problem. I think that most people only focus on one area of concern, and they don't communicate with others who are doing the same. Because of decentralization, there's a barrier to entry, things don't work well together and people don't know what's available. Ultimately big tech ends up winning.
Show threadviqDec 7, 2022
@ehashman
Are you taking about creating platforms where even non technical folks would be able to run things themselves, or collectives running more complex things for non technical folks?
I can't talk to the former, but for the latter I see a couple issues:
1) resources - even without labour, hardware and power and network cost money.
2) trust. This one has a couple dimensions. On one hand, "clients" need to trust "admins" to not invade.
Show threadviqDec 7, 2022
@ehashman
On the other, "admins" need to trust "clients" to not abuse the resources. Crypto mining and other "hey, I'll just dump tons of my stuff because it's free (or something)" are wasteful. "Problematic" imagery or otherwise sending threats can get whole infrastructure confiscated.
Show threade. hashman Dec 7, 2022
@viq the latter!
Show threadviqDec 7, 2022
@ehashman
Then I'd like to hear your thoughts.
While resources seem "relatively easy" to solve, the whole issue of trust, going both ways, seems complicated, socially. And it's hard, if possible at all, for admins to prevent themselves from gaining access to data they're hosting.
Show threade. hashman Dec 7, 2022

@viq Oh, the nice thing about the trust issue is that it mirrors any other social space. We can solve this in the same way we might solve it for an activist organization or community group.

I think the resourcing is much more difficult because of how much coordinated labour, money, and time is required to build and run high quality tech. In another thread, I talk about the sheer resource gap between venture capital funded projects like Twitter and a hobbyist project like Mastodon: https://kith.kitchen/@ehashman/109396726220858543

e. hashman (@[email protected])

Given the ubiquity of extremely well-engineered social media technology available at no cost to users I see frequently discussed, it might be useful to note: - Twitter is 16 years old, raised nearly 13 billion USD in venture capital, employed thousands of engineers, and had a successful IPO. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/twitter - Block Party is four years old, raised nearly 5 million USD in seed dollars, and employs multiple people full-time. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/block-party-4a94 Developing technology is not free.

Kith Kitchen
Show threadviqDec 7, 2022
@ehashman
If I'm understanding you correctly, you're comparing running Mastodon or NextCloud to running Twitter or Dropbox.
It isn't so. Dropbox and Twitter both develop their product and run it, scaling to huge numbers of users, while providing support and engaging in marketing.
With open source stuff, running is completely independent from writing. And you can run for just a few dozens out hundreds of folks, instead of millions. Complexity is hugely different.
Show threadviqDec 7, 2022
@ehashman
And, as evidenced by instance I'm writing from, hackerspaces could very well become such community tech hubs. That still requires some resources, and that still requires trust, but as you said, those people you can meet.
Show threadviqDec 7, 2022
@ehashman
BTW, @rysiek , i think this conversation is right up your alley ;)
Show threadMichaΕ‚ "rysiek" WoΕΊniak Β· πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡¦Dec 7, 2022

@viq good one! Yeah, I do agree. We need to focus on community hosting, not "every person for themselves".

@ehashman

Show threade. hashman Dec 7, 2022

@viq Yes. There is a reason that Twitter and Dropbox are used by the wider public while use of Mastodon and NextCloud are largely confined to tech enthusiasts, and it's not decentralized ops.

Polished, usable, accessible, secure tech is going to win out against FOSS every time if it doesn't also deliver polish, usability, accessibility, security. And frankly, it should. Why is FOSS not meeting peoples' needs? Resourcing, imo.

Show threadviqDec 7, 2022
@ehashman
Even if UI of OSS was as polished as counterparts, it would still lose out because of all the effort of having to maintain it, and having to have hardware to run it on, and having to maintain *that*, *and* network. And running things for a 100 users is *VERY* different from running things for 10M users.
*DON'T* aim to unseat Dropbox. Those are different markets, different goals.
Bikes might offload subway a bit, but won't replace it. It's that kind of conversation.
Show threadviqDec 7, 2022
@ehashman
And to further make it more complicated, see discussions around Signal. They are making changes to make it more similar to the pleasant experience of other major players. And people dislike them for that.
Show threadviqDec 7, 2022
@ehashman
And most of open source is created to solve someone's problem. Once it does, it stops being interesting. I'd say that's maybe around 60% towards polished interface. But the rest is very difficult, and requires a very different skill set. Graphics skills, UX design, psychology...
Show threadJoy DenebeimDec 7, 2022
@ehashman I find it funny that this was posted on mastodon. It seems to be keeping up pretty well at this point.
Show threade. hashman Dec 7, 2022
@denebeim I don't host or run the server this was posted on so I'm not sure what your point is
Show threadJoy DenebeimDec 7, 2022
@ehashman I do host and run mine. I'm just saying this system seems solid, was written by marginalized people, and yeah, the experience isn't near what I'd get from megacorp's service. There's no ads. πŸ˜†
Show threade. hashman Dec 7, 2022

@denebeim There are a lot of great things about Mastodon and I'm an early adopter of the technology, but it also has many problems. @shengokai shared an excellent analysis of how software "written by [mostly white] marginalized people" does not prevent other forms of violence or marginalization here. https://zirk.us/@shengokai/109409465909876210

So long as Mastodon isn't safe for all of us, I'm not willing to celebrate yet. I'm not going to leave anyone behind.

Dr. Johnathan Flowers (@[email protected])

Just because queer people and other folks built the fediverse or its protocol to avoid some kinds of harassment and violence doesn’t mean that the fediverse cannot be home to other kinds of violence or marginalization. Put simply, a queer history does not preclude a present that enables structures of oppression. I want to be specific about this because much of the violence I’ve experienced in queer spaces is at the hands of white queers.

zirkus
Show threadloganAug 23, 2022
@ehashman at the cost of stamping out the freedom for those who want to be in control of their own systems on a fine granular level.

everyone talks about "to scale" well completely forgetting that you can't have a group without the individuals in that group.

if you expect me or anyone really to give up their individual freedoms "for the sake of the greater good" or whatever then your completely out of your mind and this will never work. #πŸ€”
Show threadloganAug 23, 2022
@ehashman i'll put it simply from my prospective.

I didn't repair and upgrade this computer then install gentoo and maintain it on a regular basis so other people can use it.
I do not keep this server/instance running for other peoples sake because it also runs on that computer that i spend my time and money on.

now if there is a way that can happen to benefit others without taking my abilities to control my own system then i'm all ears. #πŸ€”
Show threadtech? no! man, see...Aug 23, 2022
@ehashman this is why i was really glad to read that @codeberg is structured like a cooperative; i want to see more people moving in that direction.
Show threadXerz πŸ’—Aug 23, 2022
@ehashman This seems like a short-sighted perspective based on assuming hard-to-setup and power-expensive, always-on servers. The information is ultimately always generated by and for the interest of an individual, and ideally sharing comes with consent from that level (if not you end up with mass surveillance), so that's imho the golden rule to strive for. That said, the design of the systems which lead to that MUST be communitary, as security must not rely on obscurity (see Kerckhoff's principle) and instead maximize integrity and availability by being as commonplace and well-tested as possible.
Show threade. hashman Aug 23, 2022
@xerz do you have proofs of concept or is this just what you envision?
Show threadXerz πŸ’—Aug 23, 2022
@ehashman to start with, I'd like to point out to existing technologies like Syncthing, Scuttlebutt and BitTorrent/IPFS/DAT, as well as in-development ones like Spritely/Goblins and Playbit. Even when you must have 24/7 uptime from a single source of truth/device, potential solutions can be as simple as always-on smartphones (not very far fetched at all) with low-powered SoCs and a NAT-less IPv6 connection. It doesn't really seem like we're stuck with a corporate distributed model imho.

(redrafted because Solid isn't really an example lol)
Show threadalcinnzAug 23, 2022

@xerz @ehashman I'm excited for CRDTs! That technique should significantly cutdown on how much stuff we need to bother hosting! Whether or not by self-hosting.

I try not to be individualist about this, but I object to the cloud-centric status-quo.

Show threadXerz πŸ’—Aug 23, 2022
@ehashman @alcinnz …oh huh, that just reminds me β€” I should take a look at https://crdt.tech, a convenient website gathering resources, papers and implementations based around the data structure category, thanks for the reminder 
About CRDTs β€’ Conflict-free Replicated Data Types

Resources and community around CRDT technology β€” papers, blog posts, code and more.

Conflict-free Replicated Data Types
Show threadJasper πŸ‰Aug 23, 2022

@xerz @ehashman
Like something where a server is set up somewhere as communal resource.. It is good when people can set up a communal resource? _But_ using it requires being able to reach the internet, probably DNS, and sending packages over it.

Something like Briar when it uses Bluetooth, does not. So at that level anything federated is already behind. (Syncthing can do local discovery, i think?)

No reason something like mastodon couldn't be achieved with peer-to-peer connections like that?

Show threadJasper πŸ‰Aug 23, 2022

@xerz @ehashman Furthermore, it can be hard to set-up software and run it? But also, there is a ton of software which is entirely trivial to set up?

I am not sure what exactly makes hard-to-setup software exist? Maybe when people develop dependent on a context, but one that people lose sight of.. Then recreating that context can become annoying.

Or maybe sometimes you just need to know what you're doing. (flashing bios or something..)

Show threadXerz πŸ’—Aug 23, 2022
@jasper @ehashman The fediverse is effectively an opt-in P2P platform tied in to a centralized DNS system and assuming full uptime 

As for why is software hard to setup, it often comes down to a disregard towards usability as the focus is put on experienced sysadmins who design distributed systems following corporate-esque models, and the most simplicity you'll get is a Docker image and a Helm chart… stuff which you already must be a sysadmin for to know about and understand. Definitely not an app you double click to install and click again to get running, and heavily due to technical reasons that are actually cultural…
Show threadArcoAug 23, 2022
@ehashman That's where the kittens
@ChatonsOrg come in 😊
Show threade. hashman Aug 23, 2022
@Arco @ChatonsOrg 
Show threadGabe KangasAug 23, 2022
@ehashman We can all stand to have simpler software, too, that caters to individuals instead of corporations and enterprises.