
Show HN: Bloom – A free and open source 'Google' - z0mbie42
https://www.kerkour.fr/blog/bloom-a-free-and-open-source-google
======
dougk16
Wow, ambitious! Your sheer nerve is enough to click on the link and check it
out. :)

As a potential early adopter that has seen countless would-be world-changing
technology efforts come and go, in order to personally get me on the
bandwagon, it would help to know a few things that didn't stand out to me at
first, even after visiting the [https://bloom.sh](https://bloom.sh) website.

(1) When I think Google I think "search" first and foremost, and I didn't see
a search demo or anything. I think your average visitor is going to be
thinking the same. If you're not involved in search, then branding yourself up
as a Google alternative seems a bit off.

(2) How do you intend to sustain the project? Funding, grants, donations, paid
plans, etc. More light on the team behind it as well perhaps, their
incentives, skills, etc. I want to know that you have a reasonable chance of
existing long enough to grind Google to the ground. :)

(3) A past version of myself would like to know more about "What's in it for
me, like _right now_ "? Saving the planet is all well and good, but I was a
selfish short-term thinker.

(4) A future version of myself would like to know (assuming points (2) and (3)
are answered to satisfaction) more about what _I_ can do for _you_ , but just
in small ways, i.e. I don't/won't have the time to help with an iOS app.
Practically speaking, this may just mean placing your donation links or
"Subscribe for updates" buttons somewhere more prominent. I know some of this
is included in your peer comment here on HN, so speaking about the websites
only.

Anyway, good on you for releasing, and good luck! I'll be following the
project!

~~~
z0mbie42
Hi, Thank you very much for these encouraging words!

(1) You are totally right, I plan to use this wording only to target the
'geeks' (those who may be early adopters, contributors), those who see Google
more like a very innovative tech giant rather than just a search engine

(2) As written at the bottom of the article (yes I acknowledge it's very very
long) the master plan is as follow:

1\. Build free software and charge for hosting, security of hosted data and
enterprise support

2\. With this money reduce prices, free the data and the access to scientific
knowledge

3\. With this money and this community create the open infrastructure to run
these software and host this open data

(3) I tried to make it clear by putting a large banner in the blog post in the
section explaining what we currently have, in order to catch the eye of the
bored one who will speed scroll: [https://www.kerkour.fr/blog/bloom-a-free-
and-open-source-goo...](https://www.kerkour.fr/blog/bloom-a-free-and-open-
source-google/#bloom-the-top-secret-master-plan-what)

(4) ACK, thank you, I will try to improve this

~~~
brandonhorst
FWIW, I work for Google (not on google.com), and would definitely fit into the
"geek" category, and I still assumed you were talking about an OSS search
engine.

~~~
z0mbie42
Hi, currently we absolutely do not plan to create a search engine: it requires
too much resources for self hosting, I think we currently have great option
for all the spectrum (From Google search to DuckDuckGo), and because an open
source search engine will be tricked by all kind of nasty SEO Experts and it
will be very hard to promote actually good Content.

I dared the Google comparison thinking about it's productivity suit, and
because they have an app for all the need of our life. At an extraordinary
price, even if it cost noting.

Productivity is the current foundation, but you can think having a Bloom open
source tractor in some years :)

~~~
SolarFreq
Hi, are you planning to implement email?

I want to move my radio station away from google so badly, and if you can add
email hosting, even just a pop server I can start pointing my new address to
you. As it is, I want to sign up without having to use another service (which
is going to be google, let's face it) and it would be great to have this all
stored in one place.

~~~
stOneskull
Email hosting would be a good idea. That's how Zoho gets people in.

~~~
SolarFreq
Honestly, even without the search function, I think this is one of the most
base level functions of Google's toolkit. Everything else is just convenient

~~~
snlnspc
Agreed. This seems like a neat project but mail and search are the only things
I'd be really looking for in a free and open source Google.

------
spurgu
Wouldn't "G Suite" be more descriptive than "Google"? Putting it in quotes
kind of makes you think you're not referring to the search engine, but
still...

However that may be I love the mission, awesome work!

~~~
z0mbie42
Hi,

Productivity is the current foundation, but you can think having an open
source Bloom tractor in some years.

I've dared the Google comparison, because I see Google as an innovative tech
giant who have an app for all our needs.

We have the same goal. But open source.

~~~
bradknowles
With respect, if you're not targeting Google Search, then you're not targeting
"Google".

You don't help your case by misleading your prospective customers, who are
themselves self-identified "geeks" who might be able to help you make this
goal a success.

~~~
z0mbie42
After all the feedback I think a better comparison would be Apple.

I used 'Google' because it's really clear for everyone how this company is
shaping the world (for the better or the worst).

~~~
fock
best comparison would be Nextcloud.

~~~
z0mbie42
'NextCloud' is what we are today, but I think it's not really relevant.

I've dared the Google comparison, because in my point of view, It's THE
company who is changing the world.

~~~
fock
so, you are saying you are going to change the world by imitating Google? Good
luck with that.

Besides the opaque sign-up scheme and a total disregard for standards (your
calendar/contacts "sync" integrates with which clients?), even today your
project is much less than Nextcloud...

------
z0mbie42
Hi HN, creator here!

Today is a good day, the achievement of months of works (but also the start of
a great adventure ).

I'm very excited to announce Bloom: A free and Open source ‘Google’.

Our mission ? Empowering the world with open technologies.

Why? How? What? [https://kerkour.com/blog/bloom-a-free-and-open-source-
google](https://kerkour.com/blog/bloom-a-free-and-open-source-google)

Website: [https://bloom.sh](https://bloom.sh) Android App:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bloom42.bl...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bloom42.bloomx)
Code: [https://github.com/bloom42](https://github.com/bloom42)

All the backend and services are written in Rust (You can learn more on the
rust forum why I written it in JavaScript, then rewritten in Go and finally in
Rust: [https://users.rust-lang.org/t/bloom-a-free-and-open-
source-g...](https://users.rust-lang.org/t/bloom-a-free-and-open-source-
google-written-in-rust/28981)) and is entirely free and Open Source on GitHub.
No opencore, no bullshit.

The project seems awesome and you want to help ? \- By spreading the word on
Twitter:
[https://twitter.com/z0mbie42/status/1136297238387482625](https://twitter.com/z0mbie42/status/1136297238387482625)
\- by contributing on GitLab:
[https://gitlab.com/bloom42](https://gitlab.com/bloom42) \- By becoming a
patron: [https://www.patreon.com/bloom42](https://www.patreon.com/bloom42) \-
By becoming a sponsor: [https://bloom.sh/become-a-
sponsor](https://bloom.sh/become-a-sponsor)

Let's spread freedom

Sylvain Kerkour, a.k.a z0mbie42

~~~
ddebernardy
It's a laudable project but why are you accepting bitcoin if you're so
concerned about the ecological crisis? It seems kind of contradictory, given
how bitcoin transactions are so computationally expensive now that they
reportedly consume about the same amount of energy as Denmark.

~~~
JohnJamesRambo
Maybe the raping of the earth done by the corrupt financial and banking system
is an even greater evil.

~~~
sdwisely
but an evil that isn't going away, so now you have two.

I'm not anti-cryptocurrency, but we should be striving to be better than what
we're creating an alternative to.

------
macawfish
I don't know if you want to go into it, but have you considered tackling the
"search" problem by creating some kind of advanced bookmarking/local indexing
browser extension?

I find that I use google for stuff that I've _already discovered_. I believe
that Chrome has intentionally impeded its bookmarking tools to make users more
reliant on search... I realize that Chrome lets you search for stuff you've
bookmarked in the top bar, but the flow seems designed to point you toward the
default search engine.

A good bookmarking/page caching tool with a streamlined, locally indexed
quick-find tool would cut my reliance on Google by a lot.

Overall I'm pretty dissatisfied with existing browsers' bookmarking tools, but
am hopeful that offline-first browsers like Beaker Browser will tackle this
problem in a serious way.

~~~
ubercow13
The Firefox address bar works like you want basically. Searches bookmarks (and
history) and generally prioritises them above other results.

~~~
macawfish
But does it index bookmarked pages locally, full text search their contents
and present the results in a quickly browsable list with context? Cause that
would be nice.

Especially if integrated with an offline caching/browsing feature.

~~~
ubercow13
No good point, I don't think it indexes any contents

------
imagine99
I like the audacity and hope you succeed.

I have actually wished for someone to create an open-source self-hostable
copycat of Gmail (the UI) for a long time. Having trialled a multitude of
alternatives (both commercial and open-source) I haven't found anything that
doesn't require a huge adjustment re: usability and many compromises feature-
wise.

Unfortunately, both in design and feature philosophy, Gmail is and has been
for years the "non plus ultra" imho (and I gladly left Outlook-style emailing
behind for it). Of course it too still has room for improvements but they will
probably never happen (such as a one-touch PGP integration or better usability
with many aliases), as we have most likely already reached "peak-Gmail". (Many
other services, incl. Google Search, have also been deteriorated slowly, de
facto killed (Google Books) or "optimised" to fit Google's/Alphabet's new
strategy).

As a user of pretty much the first hour (when it was still invite only) and
having moved several companies over to Gsuite from Exchange, I've felt more
and more queasy over the last months and years...

When I found out recently thanks to a HN post that even my highest-paid Gsuite
accounts track ALL my purchases (and many that aren't actually mine) and this
CANNOT be switched off or deleted, it sort of finally broke the part of my
heart that kind of still hung on to the old and long-since gone spirit of
"don't be evil"...

Sorry for the rambling.

Bottom line: I do not know if you have any plans to add a "Gmail"-type email
client/front-end (which could easily utilise one of the many very good open
source email servers and spam filters) but I for one would welcome it with
open arms.

Bonne chance!

~~~
kingnothing
What does "non plus ultra" mean?

~~~
imagine99
Literally, it means "not more further", i.e. it is the peak, there is nothing
better, this is the ultimate thing compared to others (like, you could say "my
Model X is the non plus ultra of electric SUVs", just for example). I guess it
is not a common expression but I like the phrase. ;-)

~~~
elcomet
I think a (slightly) more common expression would be "nec plus ultra".

------
Animats
"Bloom Drive" is a paid service. 30GB free, then it starts to cost. "Secured
by SSL", which probably means the data is not encrypted against access by
them.

The Bloom Drive site is one of those sleazy "sign up and then maybe we'll tell
you something about what we're selling" sites.[1] You can almost hear the
sucking sound of the onboarding funnel.

[1] [https://bloom.sh/drive](https://bloom.sh/drive)

~~~
z0mbie42
Hi, Thank you for the the harsh feedback.

Bloom being open source, if you want a more private option than the hosted
service bloom.sh you are totally free to host it yourself.

On the other hand, It's just a beta launch, we made it work (and free and open
source), and thanks to your feedback, we will make it great :)

~~~
patcon
I appreciate your generous work, but I think this person is commenting on the
lack of any screenshots. That is normally a "smell", no matter how wonderful
your intentions are <3

~~~
z0mbie42
+1, thank you for clarification.

Just didn't had time to setup it before launching.

~~~
Xunxi
You should be more transparent with your pricing. What's the charge after free
trial?

The gripe is about the scummy bait and switch artifice to get people to sign
up!

------
austhrow743
I like what you're trying to do and definitely something id use when it's more
mature. Not a comment on the quality or feature set, i just like to know tech
isn't going to stop being supported after I spend time migrating to it.

I do have to say though that I think you're really setting yourself up to
underwhelm with that Google comparison. Google is absolutely a search engine
first and foremost in everyone's minds. Normie or geek. No one says "I googled
it" to mean they innovated.

Second after search their most prominent product is Gmail, something you're
not tackling either.

~~~
z0mbie42
You are totally right, and we put a big warning that data saved during the
Beta may be lost.

Regarding Google, and after all these comments maybe 'Apple' is more accurate.

~~~
chabes
Apple makes hardware.

I think what might be more accurate is something along the lines of G Suite.
Though, without email, it still might not be the best comparison

~~~
z0mbie42
Currently there is only Drive which is similar to GSuite,

All other apps are more for personal use rather than productivity.

------
Nuzzerino
Do you have a comprehensive and viable plan to pay for costs? If it involves
getting enough donations, does your plan include a viable way to optimize
donations? Simply including a donation link, bitcoin addresses, etc, is NOT a
comprehensive plan for that. I see only 2 patrons, zero ETH donations, zero
BTC donations, despite what appears to be a considerable amount of work put
into this.

Any plans to partner with someone who specializes in marketing or otherwise
running the non-technical side of things? You'll attract more interested
parties (including potential partners with expertise) by having a higher
percentage of what you're presenting, something that looks like it's made by a
winning team.

~~~
z0mbie42
Hi, Actually my plan didn't even rely on donation to sustain the project and
reach a global scale. you can learn more about the master plan here:
[https://www.kerkour.fr/blog/bloom-a-free-and-open-source-
goo...](https://www.kerkour.fr/blog/bloom-a-free-and-open-source-google/#in-
summary)

1\. Build free software and charge for hosting, security of hosted data and
enterprise support

2\. With this money reduce prices, free the data and the access to scientific
knowledge

3\. With this money and this community create the open infrastructure to run
these software and host this open data

Donation are just a plus, and because I didn't had time to implement payments
before launching :) (it's the first day I talk publicly about the project, so
I think it's understandable that donation metrics are not so great).

Regarding how much work have been done until today, it's been 6 months I eat
pastes :)

------
t0astbread
This is interesting and (like everyone else) I have a few questions:

\- Will this be based on open, industry standard protocols?

\- It looks like there are multiple applications combined into one giant
system in the web- and Android apps right now. Will those be interchangeable
(with say, third party implementations)? Are the apps somehow connected (do
the music player and the gallery for example get their content from the
drive)? (Basically, does it follow something like the Unix principles [1]?)

\- Can I self-host this without AWS? If no were there any privacy/ethical
considerations taken around the decision to go full-AWS?

I know these are critical questions but as a potential customer I'd like to
know this kinda stuff. I understand if you don't have answers to everything
atm though and I like the spirit of this project! :)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy)

~~~
z0mbie42
(1) Currently not really, we have a (self made) HTTP API, and S3 API support
for blob storage. We don not support (and do not have yet examined things like
WebDAV...)

(2) You can see current Bloom as an Unikernel, So yes the music player and the
gallery lets you play files directly from your Drive :)

One things like oauth will be implemented I see no constraint to use third
party implementations (planned for Q4 2019).

(3) Totally, Better self hosting documentation is planned for next version:
[https://gitlab.com/groups/bloom42/-/epics/5](https://gitlab.com/groups/bloom42/-/epics/5)

~~~
t0astbread
Thank you, this sounds pretty promising (and ambitious) so far. Will watch
this project for the future!

------
neop1x
I like your enthusiasm but I am afraid you are overambitious. For me, it
sounds a bit like GSuite alrernative hosted on Google Cloud. It doesn't make
sense to me. What is the advantage of it being opensource when it is hosted by
you. I have been hosting my own NextCloud instance on a bare metal server for
years, email (exim, dovecot, roundcube), dns (bind) and it all replaced gsuite
for me, they are awesome libre and OSS projects. Of course managing it is not
easy and not something every enduser should be doing. But this is how the
internet was expected to work in the beginning - decentralized. If you start
building gsuite alternative, you will end up being gsuite anyway because of
all the availability and large-scale management. You will be using third party
public clouds, networks and it will be expensive and you won't be able to
guarantee it will continue to work for next years and people don't want their
email to stop working. Anyway, good luck! I would like to be wrong!

~~~
z0mbie42
Thank you for the feedback.

The plan is as follows: Code is free and open source, but 98% don't have the
time/the knowledge/the will to self host and will happily be us to manage and
secure their data (like DropBox).

Open source is not much a marketing argument, but in my opinion the only way
to build a sustainable future.

~~~
nathan-io
> Code is free and open source, but 98% don't have the time/the knowledge/the
> will to self host

The vast majority of people who use GSuite won't understand or care about the
OSS angle. Even if they do, they won't have the sophistication to examine your
code. Thus, they must simply "trust" you, the same way they'd trust a
corporation like Google.

People who really care about OSS are more likely to choose a more established
solution for each use case (ie. Nextcloud for storage), and to self-host those
solutions.

> will happily be us to manage and secure their data (like DropBox)

Again, if your edge over Dropbox is "we're open source!", I think this is just
not compelling to most potential users who still want someone else
hosting/managing their files. In that case, the open source transparency
doesn't even mean anything, because the code in your repo isn't necessarily
the code you're running on your servers.

In my case, I _don 't_ trust Dropbox, but I want their infrastructure. So I
use a third-party encryption tool to ensure that they don't have access to
folders I want to keep private. Best of both worlds.

------
AgentME
I've been using Google Play Music with my own music collection uploaded into
it, and I've loved how easy it makes it to play my music collection on any of
my devices now. I no longer have to mess about with syncing my music files
across my devices, use a different music player on each device, and inevitably
have to re-create my playlists on each device because they don't support the
same playlist format.

However, it bugs me that Google Play Music isn't under my control at all.
There's a few features from Rhythmbox I would like in it (around how it
handles queuing music while listening to a collection), I wish I could share
my music collection with my partner, and I wish I could synchronize playing
music across multiple devices. Listening to music is something I do during a
big fraction of my waking hours; I'd like to be able to edit the code for
that. Also Google is discontinuing GPM in favor of YouTube Music at some
point, which doesn't yet have the private collection features of GPM and it's
unclear what features from GPM are going to be copied over. I really don't
like not knowing what's going to happen to an application I use in so much of
my life. Regardless of how it turns out, it feels like I've made a mistake to
find myself in this position.

It disappointed me that there don't seem to be good open source solutions for
"play my private music collection from the cloud". That's not the sort of
thing that the classic Linux / open source community focuses on for example,
which I think is a sign of it falling behind the times. I'd started thinking
that I would love an open source GPM alternative that contained the cloud
collection functionality, and it's awesome that this project looks like it's
going for this open-source cloud philosophy that seems to have been un-
pursued.

~~~
jasonjayr
> It disappointed me that there don't seem to be good open source solutions
> for "play my private music collection from the cloud"

FWIW, I've recently been able to do this with Airsonic (on server) + DSub on
Android. Favorite tracks are replicated to my phone, so I can offline listen,
and tracks can be re-encoded on the fly for low-bandwidth situations.

~~~
ldubost
Isn't what you are looking for Funkwhale
[https://funkwhale.audio/](https://funkwhale.audio/)

------
dubcanada
Probably has nothing to do with anything, but I find it funny that a website
trying not to be Google is using Google's Material Design.

Ignoring that, this stuff all looks fantastic.

~~~
imagine99
Google's design language is pretty unsurpassed, well documented and very user-
friendly, thanks also to a ton of research that has been done in connection
with Android, I guess.

So I see nothing wrong with him using that, in fact it would be a major factor
for me personally in considering any Google service alternatives.

Keeping the switching barrier low is key for successful and widespread user
adoption.

I actually think bad UI design is THE single greatest impediment for
widespread adoption of free or open-source software imho. A lot has been
written on that subject but I think the trope is "open-source developers
cannot create good UIs". It is an old but well-accepted axiom, same as "Poland
cannot into space", and it seems everyone adheres to it... ;-)

So using an established and "known good" design language is in fact ingenious.

------
netwanderer3
These seem a bit similar to some of the services offered by Disroot.org?
They're also leveraging open source software such as NextCloud in providing
related services. I'm curious of how you are paying for initial hosting costs,
especially if more users start using it and you'll need to scale up? Are the
operations strictly relying on donations at the moment?

EDITED: I just read your comment and realized you plan to charge users for the
services. I noticed Disroot's free services experience down time quite often,
but it's free. You're probably going to need an army of support staff since
the expectation will likely be quite high once people have to make payments.

------
solipsism
How are you going to do all these amazing things? When I go to bloom.sh and
click About, I learn that the core team is one product designer and one
graphic designer.

If you're asking for support, I think you'd benefit from learning from the
Kickstarter model -- go to great lengths to prove to supporters that your
goals are realistic.

Comparing yourself to Google doesn't help you with that, IMO.

~~~
z0mbie42
To prove our goals are realistic we released this beta.

We had much more attention than we expected today. You can follow us on
twitter to stay informed about the future updates :)
[https://twitter.com/bloom42](https://twitter.com/bloom42)

------
mysterydip
What are your plans as far as sunsetting unpopular or unmaintained services?

~~~
jjeaff
Ha, hopefully that's not the part of Google they are talking about emulating.

~~~
z0mbie42
Never, ever :)

------
dancedar
So, I tried bitflow, pasted a magnet with 2500 seeders. Same in to seedr.cc.
The latter it was downloaded in roughly 45 seconds, on bitflow it's still
queued. No title/name, just the magnet link. Can you share details on this?

~~~
z0mbie42
Resource were not size for the load. I'll increase resources :)

~~~
dancedar
Thanks! It is completed. But I can't do anything, clicking it does nothing, I
cant see any files in the folder of the torrent. Long press does nothing. No
documentation, help pages empty.

~~~
dancedar
Ok, so the bitflow interface does nothing once it's downloaded,you have to go
to drive. Best make this clear

------
zelon88
This looks great! I REALLY appreciate the up front and honest business
outline. Please never change it (*ahem, Google).

Although to be perfectly honest the post linked is a bit too long and
sophomoric for geeks and early adopters. But it highlights your passion and
the fact that you're probably persisting with a small team of founders. (Could
be wrong, but I admire either way).

I also offer a free alternative to several Google services, for free and
without limitations. I don't want to plug, because your products are far, far
nicer in the UI and polish deptartments.

Thanks for sharing! I look forward to following along with your progress.

------
peterwwillis
This reads like an episode of Silicon Valley translated from French with
Google Translate.

~~~
z0mbie42
Haha, I'm sorry if the English is not perfect, but as the blog post is long,
I've translated it using my 3rd year of high school teacher's advice:
formulate in your maternal language, and then translate it like if you're a 4
years old.

I've not tried to be fancy because English is simply not my primary language,
and because I have studied CS and sport last years, not literature.

~~~
harrisonjackson
I was thinking the same thing, still not 100% this is real.

You lose a lot of credibility with the whole Google Search thing. Not trying
to be harsh, but your responses on Search just seem to dig that hole deeper.

------
g105b
I'm impressed by your high goals, but I feel like the announcement on Show HN
is quite premature, or the "Google" title is very misleading.

I'm aware of the beta label, but currently I seem to only be able to use the
"Drive" product, which seems like it is a simple file upload/download tool to
and from S3. It's as if the other products are just placeholders for the
future; ideas that look like products if you don't touch them. Am I missing
some features from my account for some reason?

~~~
z0mbie42
You are totally right. Today's announcement was to explain THE why:
[https://www.kerkour.fr/blog/the-just-cause-and-the-
infinite-...](https://www.kerkour.fr/blog/the-just-cause-and-the-infinite-
game)

We had very good feedback and a lot of people would love to contribute :)

The what is an ongoing process.

------
whereareyouwow
A lot of people expected search engine. I did too. But I also expected
something about privacy. I presume that would be the main impetus for a lot of
people to switch. Make sure you get the privacy / encryption done right (as in
even Bloom would not be able to access your documents in the clear). Better
privacy is what made search engine alternatives grow in popularity
(duckduckgo, startpage, or qwant in france). It would not be any different for
G Suite.

------
vokep
Wow! Yes! Awesome!

I will happily pay twice as much as I do/would for any given google service if
it means this survives.

If there could be a "sign in with bloom" on every site, that would be great. I
would be happy to donate for email for something like this as well. I really
want an email service that isn't gmail.

God I just hope non-technical people can be made aware of and interested in
this, because it would be absolutely incredible for everyone if it succeeded.

~~~
unnouinceput
erm, try protonmail then?

------
webmaven
Since your focus is on "productivity", you shuold probably retitle from
"Google" to "G Suite":
[https://gsuite.google.com/](https://gsuite.google.com/)

------
RIMR
So, the only way I would EVER use something like this is if I controlled it.
The only way other people are going to adopt this is if it's easy to install
in your own environment.

I think that offering this as a cloud service is short-sighted. Not only is
running this in AWS going to be prohibitively expensive if you're doing it for
"free", guaranteeing that you'll either need to add advertisements or start
charging for service (making you no different than Google, as a service), but
running it in the cloud eliminates most of the advantages of using Google
Apps.

I think that the website should be more focused on installing the software to
your own server, and that if you have a cloud portal at all it should be a
demo environment, rather than a planned SaaS solution.

It's also sort of out-of-character for a .sh FOSS website not to include some
sort of .sh installer for getting everything up and running on a fresh Linux
VM.

Given that this stuff is supposed to be a replacement for Google's suite, and
Google focuses on ease-of-use, it wouldn't hurt to create apt/yum repos for
installing official binaries so that people can throw this onto a cloud server
and get up and running in a few minutes, rather than digging through your
source and trying to compile all that Rust code from scratch.

I'm going to work on getting this running in my VMware environment, and I am
going to play around a little with the docker container, but it would be
really nice to be able to install this in production easily, and have the
ability to update it in-place easily, because that's the only way I am going
to play with it as a serious tool.

The warning that none of my data being guaranteed is pretty much a dealbreaker
for me to beta test this thing for any important task if I don't control it.

~~~
z0mbie42
Hi, thank you for the harsh comment.

We made it works, and thanks to your feedback we will make it great!

Our vision is as following: In the future, Google and Microsoft will be
replaced by a federation of Bloom instances. boom.sh being one of them.

98% of the users don't have the technical knowledge/the time/the will to
build, host and secure their own instance, and that's how we (and other
instance providers) will make money.

You are right, AWS hosting is short-sighted, but it's because I've some
credits, and easier to setup.

Privacy being one of our cor value, end to end encryption is on the roadmap.

------
ForHackernews
> What would happen if tomorrow Twitter went bankrupt and stop its services?

Everyone's lives would improve and productivity would increase worldwide? Was
this a trick question?

------
jonathanmh
This is an awesome initiative. Is anybody else thinking of the Watchdogs Blume
though? ^^
[https://watchdogs.fandom.com/wiki/Blume_Corporation](https://watchdogs.fandom.com/wiki/Blume_Corporation)

------
mkolodny
I think of Mozilla as a free and open source Google.

~~~
z0mbie42
I think so.

I didn't mention it because Mozilla is not really known for mere mortals (non
geeks). But Mozilla is a great inspiration for me (their privacy first
designs...)

~~~
shmerl
I thought Mozilla is relatively well known, due to wide usage of Firefox.

~~~
z0mbie42
Unfortunately, I do not share this point of view. At least in France.

My friends from CS school know it well, but my friends from Business schools
does absolutely not.

~~~
ldubost
I'm from France too, and Mozilla is already more known than many others in the
Open Source space, and their user base is still huge compared to anything
else.

Z0mbie42 is young and did not see when Mozilla was the browser alternative
before Google Chrome and stole the show. It is coming back today though
because users start to realize the "Google problem".

Now Mozilla is a browser alternative and not a services one. But this is a
good example of how unrealistic and not so good it is to want to be a "google"
alternative. Today Google is everywhere from search engine (the original
google) to collaboration, music, pro apps, video, browsers and so on.

Building an alternative as open source is good but it should clearly not be as
monolithic as Google is.

Now it's complicated because users want a more integrated experience and open
source developers that manage to grow their tool in a specific area dont have
that much time and funding to better integrate so it's slow.

Also copying as is Google as Open Source is also not the solution. What about
privacy. I believe end to end encryption is key. There are advancement in this
area (the project cryptpad.fr we work on is one of them). What about
decentralization ? There are tools building up in this area like mastodon or
peer tube.

I wish Open Source can come out with an alternative, but it will need to be an
integration of solutions, and not only a monolithic solution. Check out
Framasoft.org for an incredible list of open source services they host.

Ludovic

~~~
z0mbie42
Hi, I would love to be in touch, please contact me:
[https://bloom.sh/contact](https://bloom.sh/contact)

As being a huge topic, federation is planned for Q3/Q4 2020.

I checked cryptpad, but I feel it's really lacking focus on user experience.

About e2e encryption, it's planned for Q4 2019, but collaborative encryption
is really not an easy stuff. "Cryptography is a serious matter".

~~~
ldubost
The collaborative encryption is exactly what is solved in CryptPad.fr and at
the core of the storage model. This is actually key because it's not the only
problem you will get once you try to add encryption. You'll realize everything
needs to be rebuild with no database on the server side, otherwise you will
get only partial encryption. Encryption needs to be built in first and then
the rest should be added.

Concerning user experience, do not confuse design and user experience. Yes
some design is needed to improve cryptPad, but the user experience starts with
making it super easy to start to share something. In the case of bloom you
first needed to register which is not needed on cryptpad to start working
collaboratively.

Note that cryptPad storage is a bit like S3 but with e2e encryption and
collaborative documents built in.. so you could build your UI on top of it,
but e2e encryption means everything needs to be done from the client side, not
from the server side.

There is also a roadmap. I will contact you. We can meet. We are next to
Beaubourg.

------
paddypad
This seems to go in a direction similar to Nextcloud. In order to make lasting
impact, I think chances would be better by building on top of solutions as
such.

------
andrew_
A volunteer, state-registered nonprofit Neighborhood Association that I handle
the technology side of things for was recently flat out denied by Google and
I've been looking for meaningful alternatives so the association can manage
its affairs without dipping into their meager savings. I'm encouraged by your
project. It's missing a key apps, but I'll keep an eye on it moving forward!

~~~
jcelerier
Framasoft in France does the same thing (and has much more supported apps) if
anyone is interested :
[https://framasoft.org/en/#dio](https://framasoft.org/en/#dio)

------
julius_set
I love the sheer will. I can help kick off iOS development, how should I
contact you personally before I start posting in your GitHub .org?

~~~
z0mbie42
Thank you, Please use [https://bloom.sh/contact](https://bloom.sh/contact) to
contact us

------
YeGoblynQueenne
>> The problem is that today these data, produced by everyone, become the
property of big companies (the giants of tech), and are used among other
things to destabilize our political organizations.

>> Having these data in open access would increase the speed and quality of
innovation in all areas.

The phrase "these data, produced by everyone" suggests that this is about
personal data, like the data that is used by large corporations to profile
users and target advertisement at them. So it's not, or not only scientific
data, as the term is normally used.

In that case, then the problem is not how this data is used- it is that it is
being collected and retained, in the first place. In other words, the
consideration is privacy, not the motive for profit. Opening access to this
data will not really do anything to ensure users' privacy. Quite the opposite.
It will just make their data freely available to anyone who might want it for
any reason at all.

~~~
z0mbie42
Hi, Thank you about your feedback.

My though were more data like those produced by electric cars, Google maps
users, smart wearable, IOT... Anonymized data, which are useful to make the
world progress.

Privacy is our core value and one of our selling point. We will never
sacrifice it for some quick buck by selling or mining private data.

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
But the kind of data you are talking about in this comment - wearable device
data, IOT data, map use data, etc, is exactly the kind of data that risks
compromising the user's privacy, and worse.

Anonymising the data is hardly sufficient to ensure that the user is
protected. The data you're talking about is data that relates to peoples'
everyday activities: driving, moving about, using home appliances and personal
devices, etc. They can be used to model a user's characteristics, and then the
model can be used to make decisions that affect the user intimately, such as
the costs of medical insurance, say, or employment offers and so on. And I do
mean that all this can affect the user whose data is used _even though the
data is anonymised_.

I appreciate your assurances that you will never sacrifice privacy, but how
will that be possible if all the users' data is free to access?

------
lostmsu
Any plans to use capabilities and Cap'n'Proto like SandStorm.io?

~~~
z0mbie42
Sorry, but what are capabilities ?

About Cap'n'Proto what benefits does it brings, and what are the trade-offs ?

~~~
lostmsu
Capabilities is a kind of security model. Look these things up, very valuable
info.

An example of a capability is any Android permission apps have to ask user
for.

------
countryqt30
Google? I tried to find a "search bar" for 10 sec, and then left the site
frustrated, sure to never come back.

~~~
z0mbie42
I'm really happy that you still found the time to post a comment :,)

------
heliostatic
An exciting and audacious undertaking! I see the "Books" folder in the Drive.
It would be great to have an ePub reader built in, perhaps using
[https://github.com/futurepress/epub.js/](https://github.com/futurepress/epub.js/)

~~~
z0mbie42
Thank you. It's planned (but no ETA for the moment)

~~~
heliostatic
That's still great to hear.

------
sabujp
The Bloom logo is almost the same as the google cloud logo just folded
differently :
[https://yt3.ggpht.com/a/AGF-l79_dlSqckoEPCco9JxnGmDLrq-F10w0...](https://yt3.ggpht.com/a/AGF-l79_dlSqckoEPCco9JxnGmDLrq-F10w0e43xDw=s900-mo-
c-c0xffffffff-rj-k-no)

~~~
z0mbie42
I didn't even notice this one haha

So to be clear, yes as the title mention, Google was a source of inspiration
(especially their material design documentation), but foolishly copying is not
our goal :)

------
unixhero
How will you remain free when your user base increases to , let's use a silly
term, "web scale"?

~~~
z0mbie42
To be more precise, as written in the master plan
([https://www.kerkour.fr/blog/bloom-a-free-and-open-source-
goo...](https://www.kerkour.fr/blog/bloom-a-free-and-open-source-google/#in-
summary)) we plan to make enough money with enterprise support and those
willing to pay, to balance the loss of the free tier.

------
nsilvestri
In order to compete, I think it's important that there is some way to import
existing data from competitors (read: Google). I would like to switch to try
it out, but I don't want to spend several hours uploading or manually entering
data.

~~~
z0mbie42
Hi,

it's planned (but no precise date) after the Beta :)

------
pcdoodle
Wow, this is super badass! A few people mentioned email, Instead of making a
hosted email system, how about a client for IMAP? PS I couldn't get create
contact to pop up a dialog (Safari w/ublock origin)

~~~
z0mbie42
Thank you!

Bug have been identified and is in progress to be fixed.

------
smadurange
Having the balls to take up on a project of this scale is admirable. All the
best! Wish I could contribute but not familiar with any of the languages used.
Will try to contribute in other ways. Good luck!

~~~
z0mbie42
Thank you, You can check frequently the issue list to see if something might
interest you:
[https://gitlab.com/groups/bloom42/-/issues](https://gitlab.com/groups/bloom42/-/issues)

------
the_common_man
Gave it a quick try and looks like very similar to cozy before they pivoted. I
guess this is also like nextcloud/owncloud/seafile. Can you explain how your
product will be different from those?

~~~
z0mbie42
Hi,

I'm not aware of cozy's story, but Bloom's goal is not to stay a nth
productivity self hosted Cloud.

We have a different offering (like Bitflow) and our goal is to bring open
source to far more domains like agriculture, architecture.

Our goal is to have like Google (therefore the title) an app for all the needs
of our life. But open source.

~~~
the_common_man
Thank you, best of luck!

------
YjSe2GMQ
About the intro: how many more people (since Karl Marx) will rediscover the
Pareto distribution and come to the conclusion that it should not be the case
...

It's perfectly natural, so many systems follow Pareto. From Wikipedia:

\- The sizes of human settlements (few cities, many hamlets/villages)

\- File size distribution of Internet traffic which uses the TCP protocol
(many smaller files, few larger ones)

\- Hard disk drive error rates

\- Clusters of Bose–Einstein condensate near absolute zero

\- The values of oil reserves in oil fields (a few large fields, many small
fields)

\- The length distribution in jobs assigned supercomputers (a few large ones,
many small ones)

\- The standardized price returns on individual stocks

\- Sizes of sand particles

\- The size of meteorites

\- Severity of large casualty losses for certain lines of business such as
general liability, commercial auto, and workers compensation.

\- Amount of time a user on steam will spend playing different games. (Some
games get played a lot, but most get played almost never.)

I will also add popularity of words in a language, and, the most popular
instance: individual wealth distribution.

~~~
vk23
Given that you feel like the Pareto distribution can never be wrong I propose
that we model all taxes accordingly. After all it should be natural that very
few people pay most taxes while most pay almost nothing.

Nothing about wealth distribution is natural. With the help of the Pareto
distributed political power that installed the system in the first place
wealth is controlling itself.

~~~
YjSe2GMQ
I'm 100% for progressive taxes (i.e. higher taxes on richer people). People
should have decent lives even if they can't participate in the
workforce/markets with great success.

Also taxes are a very successful way of dampening the inequality:
[https://www.economist.com/graphic-
detail/2019/04/13/american...](https://www.economist.com/graphic-
detail/2019/04/13/american-inequality-reflects-gross-incomes-as-much-as-taxes)

It's just that the top 50% or top 10% or top 1% or top 0.1% will always hold
disproportionate amount of wealth, and no system will change that. Under USSR
the select few in the communist party had that wealth, although it wasn't
expressed in dollars (or any other currency), but in the power and
unquestionability of their decisions.

------
misterman0
As others have said: you have some nerve. Congrats!

This idea is clearly doable. If I were you I'd have spiced it up with

\- a non-tracking and completely anonymous web browser

\- expert web search

Including those will attract talent to your startup.

------
lawry
You might also want to publish your app on f-droid.org, since it's the
alternative to the Google Play Store and it's focussed around really free apps
without tracking etc.

~~~
z0mbie42
It's planned :) [https://gitlab.com/bloom42/app-
Android/issues/1](https://gitlab.com/bloom42/app-Android/issues/1)

------
alpb
Worth reading: [http://blog.nullspace.io/building-search-
engines.html](http://blog.nullspace.io/building-search-engines.html)

~~~
z0mbie42
Hi, currently we absolutely do not plan to create a search engine: it requires
too much resources for self hosting, I think we currently have great option
for all the spectrum (From Google search to DuckDuckGo), and because an open
source search engine will be tricked by all kind of nasty SEO Experts and it
will be very hard to promote actually good Content.

I dared the Google comparison thinking about it's productivity suit, and
because they have an app for all the need of our life. At an extraordinary
price, even if it cost noting.

Productivity is the current foundation, but you can think having a Bloom open
source tractor in some years :)

~~~
welder
> think having a Bloom open source tractor in some years

You're building open source products in all markets with no limitations?
Assuming you plan to harness the open source community to help out? Serious
question: How is this different from GitHub? I can go to
[https://github.com/search](https://github.com/search) and find alternatives
to all your products already built somewhere and open source.

~~~
z0mbie42
hi,

Our secret sauce is:

Bloom conciliate the best of the Startuplaland religion: radical execution
rather than bureaucracy, scalability, flawless user experience, strong product
culture, iterative process, and open source: a mode of development that has
proven its superiority, open governance, an unmatched sustainability and a
perfect symbiosis between the interests of developers and those of users.

You can also learn more about how we plan to make money:
[https://www.kerkour.fr/blog/bloom-a-free-and-open-source-
goo...](https://www.kerkour.fr/blog/bloom-a-free-and-open-source-google/#in-
summary)

In short: yes there is already a lot of open source project, but I found that
those open source project lack the user experience required to reach a non
'geek market'.

------
Fej
For Bitflow, how are you going to handle copyright infringement? You're going
to be flooded with takedown requests. Surely you have realized this?

Good luck, this looks to be a good start.

~~~
paxys
Not if the files aren't public.

~~~
Fej
It works like any other torrent client, if a rightsholder finds a torrent of
their content they can attempt to sue whoever was downloading by looking at
the IPs in the swarm. In this case that would be Bloom's servers.

It's like a free VPN.

------
sadsam
It's just me? Why no plan for email at all? How use contacts and Drive without
email integration? Or am I missing something?

~~~
z0mbie42
This feature has been requested a lot, and I'm very open to include it!

------
cryptozeus
Please add some screen shots of product. Idk about others but this would be a
great way to get people to try the service.

~~~
z0mbie42
Thank you for the feedback. I've added it to the roadmap.

------
kwhitefoot
If it is to be run self hosted on a RPi how will you solve the problem of
being behind a NAT router?

I recently tried NextCloud and was unable to configure my router so that I
could access it from outside the LAN. It seems that my ISP (Telenor, Norway)
is making it difficult, whether intentionally or not I don't know.

------
paulcarroty
> Drive

> A safe place for all your files. 30GB free.

Great. Hope cli is supported and this Drive don't use Google Drive under the
hood.

------
paxys
I don't know if it is intentional or not, but the Bloom logo is an almost
exact copy of Google Drive's.

~~~
z0mbie42
Some friend said the same thing, I've to admit that I'm not a designer and
found the inspiration from the brand who spend big bucks on their logos.

~~~
paxys
In case the product gets popular you are 100% getting a copyright notice from
Google, so may as well change it now rather than after the brand is
established

~~~
z0mbie42
On the other hand there is absolutely no copyright infringement, it's only the
result of following material design guidelines.

~~~
paxys
Material design guidelines do not allow you to use or edit Google's logos

------
dystroy
Regarding Bloom Drive you mention

> And Bloom Drive is encrypted using SSL.

You mean the connection is encrypted, right ? Or was there a typo ?

~~~
z0mbie42
Sorry, it was a copy/past from One drive or something similar.

Currently it's only uploaded on a S3 (with encryption activated).

End to end encryption is on the roadmap.

------
cannedslime
I like the idea, but I think you missed the most important product that Google
has monopolized... Search!

------
dustfinger
> Bloom is an organization which use open source / access / data... to
> redistribute freely its production, relying on new technologies to do it
> cheaply at scale, rather than using them as an imperialist weapon.

FYI to the site maintainer: The above excerpt is repeated in subsequent
paragraphs.

~~~
z0mbie42
Thank you! I've pushed a fix.

------
urbanslug
I wonder whether this is how it was when RMS had the userland and all he
needed was someone with a Kernel.

~~~
z0mbie42
Actually, we have a kernel:
[https://gitlab.com/bloom42/bloom/tree/master/server/kernel](https://gitlab.com/bloom42/bloom/tree/master/server/kernel)

Joking aside, as you can read in the blog post I'm really eager that people
join the project and contribute.

~~~
urbanslug
:D

Sadly my time is like all taken up and Rust skills are zero but I'd love to
contribute to such a cause for sure.

------
misterman0
Google got skilled at large scale search, then generalized on that and went on
to create a distributed big data compute engine, and asked themselves, now
what can we build?

You're thinking of following those steps but in reverse.

I love it. Two thumbs up!

------
fock
eeeh, I'd never miss Google, except for the search... 1/10 for the effort

BTW: what about Nextcloud. Seems to have exactly the same featureset and you
don't need to sign up to some fishy service

------
PatrolX
Clicked, didn't see a search engine, closed the tab.

~~~
z0mbie42
Hi, it's great that you still had time to comment this post :')

------
thepra
First mistake in the account creation of the bloom app, assuming all
people|cultures have a surname...

~~~
pndy
It seems that's also impossible to register an account without revealing name
and last name. I'd like to use services anonymously as is only possible.

ToS gives me very restrictive vibes - it feels like it's oriented to work for
provider and not users.

------
techaddict009
Open Source Google but hiding the pricing page! There is no pricing page I
could find.

Big No No!

------
SquishyPanda23
Minor nit: you probably mean "suite" instead of "suit".

~~~
z0mbie42
Yeah, Thank you!

Fixed :)

~~~
SquishyPanda23
Sure! I like the bold vision. Good luck!

------
jolmg
You have a typo in your first paragraph:

> We think that open soruce is...

~~~
z0mbie42
Thank you, fixed.

------
wchandler
"Get started for free" \- warning enough.

~~~
lucb1e
While I agree in principle, like, it probably applies to most companies, this
seems a little dismissive for something with such a clearly altruistic goal.
At least look into the profit model and remark upon that instead of adding two
words to a four word citation and posting that to the thread.

------
edisonjoao
nice!

------
rcdwealth
Hello Sylvain,

Today I was reading news.ycombinator.com

and found your website: [https://www.kerkour.fr/blog/bloom-a-free-and-open-
source-goo...](https://www.kerkour.fr/blog/bloom-a-free-and-open-source-
google/)

You may consider me free software supporter since 1999\. That is how long I am
using GNU operating systems with Linux kernel.

I am business consultant too, helping people to startup in business.

Let me give you few comments on your website:

Congratulation on publishing software under the GNU Affero Public license.

> Bloom: a free and open source Google

Please note that "Google" is a trademark. While Google will not react that
fast, you should. As you are using the trademark to promote your own services,
be it free software or not, that is really wrong approach.

> The social crisis

I agree there are social crisis situation in the world. But I don't agree in
generalities and presentation that is making it general. As it is not. There
are many areas in the world where people do not have social crisis. You would
not be able to convince them.

> How is the world's wealth shared among its > population?

Well let me say that "world" does not own any wealth. Your statement is
deceptive, and I even don't see why that type of politics shall be involved
with the software that you so nicely published under the Affero GNU Public
License. Don't give people politics, if you are providing software that
everybody can use. That is incompatible.

Make one separate page for your world's wealth politics.

World does not "own" wealth. You are mistaken. It is owned by private
individuals and corporations that in turn also belong to private individuals,
some of them being non-profit corporations that are now owned by any
particular person.

Wealth is not "shared" because "world" does not share "wealth".

Wealth is obtained by providing products, services, production.

Some of people are successful and they earn more than you do. Majority of
people who do earn very much, may decide, but that it their own free will, to
contribute to society.

However, wealth is theirs.

There is no such thing as "global wealth distribution", as nobody
"distributes" wealth. It is earned and obtained by providing services in
exchange, by providing products in exchange, by producing something in
exchange for something.

If I am carpenter, and I produce a chair, I am giving you the chair and get
some money. You have the chair, I have the money.

If you consider both of those items to belong to "wealth" set, then you must
also consider both sides of the scale: the chair and the money.

If I have provided many chairs in the USA, there are many chairs in the USA
"distributed" to various households.

But you don't consider in your observations how much wealth (chairs, goods,
products, services, manufacturing of plethods of things) was created by people
and private individuals and corporations who you are targeting with those
silly graphics about "wealth distribution".

You only present it in the manner to say that there is something wrong that
someone was smarter or some group was better organized and earning more than
you.

I find it selfish and thoughtless.

> Patents and copyrights

I totally agree with you. But that is how it is, and now we and you are using
GNU Affero Public license to protect the free software.

> Open source

No, I don't agree with you at all.

> Open source: The open-source model is a decentralized software development
> model that encourages open collaboration. A main principle of open-source
> software development is peer production, with products such as source code,
> blueprints, and documentation freely available to the public. The open-
> source movement in software began as a response to the limitations of
> proprietary code. The model is used for projects such as in open-source
> appropriate technology, and open-source drug discovery.

> The best known example of open source is GNU/Linux, a free and open source
> operating system that is used by the majority of servers and phones today.

Absolutely not.

You are so much mistaken.

Please read the definition of free software:
[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-
sw.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html)

“Free software” means software that respects users' freedom and community.
Roughly, it means that the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute,
study, change and improve the software.

A program is free software if the program's users have the four essential
freedoms: [1]

    
    
        The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).
        The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
        The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2).
        The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
    

1\. If it is centralized and free software it really does not matter. It can
be made centralized. But "centralized" or "decentralized" is not subject of
free software. It can be made by any model for as long as it is free, see
definition above.

2\. Open collaboration -- this really does not matter. Many free software
programs have been programmed without "open collaboration". Who says that free
software "must be open for collaboration" \-- it need not have any Git access
or SVN access or at all be "open" for everybody. It can be a package of
software available for download with the free software license, that is good
enough. As you have the freedom to modify it, you or anybody can decide to
make some collaboration or not. It is not a characteristic of free software.

And finally GNU is certainly NOT a good example for "open source". In fact,
with your lack of fundamentals about free software you are undermining the
efforts of free software supports.

Please read here why: [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-
point](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point)

I hope you understand the points and that you will respect this opinion.

Jean

~~~
z0mbie42
Hi Jean, I received your email and will reply, please give me some time for
the things slow down.

Best regards, Sylvain

------
lallysingh
Even the TL;DR didn't explain what I was looking at. Please fix before you've
burned your one chance at a first impression.

~~~
z0mbie42
can you give me more details?

Maybe 3 points about how to solve the issue you are raising ?

~~~
mtVessel
Not GPP, but in the tl;dr please state what you offer, not what you _think_
you are ("a free and open source 'Google'"). Tell me what you offer and I'll
decide what you are to me.

Bonus points if you can describe the benefits of your offerings without making
me read a manifesto.

Best of luck!

~~~
z0mbie42
Thank you!

I've tried to make it clear by appending a summary at the top of the blog post
and a big visual banner at the start of the offering (to catch the eyes of
those who will speed scroll). But apparently it's not enough. I'll try to fix
it.

~~~
lallysingh
No. Stop saying you're a new Google in the TL;DR. You have some Google-style
services and an app; list them. Summarize the philosophy at the end of the
TL;DR in one sentence max. Cover the community model (open source self hosted,
paid service, federated blockchain something, etc) so people understand what's
going on past the software.

We already know the critiques about Google. Nobody cares about hearing them
again. We don't want an essay.

Tell us, in specific detail, what (a) bloom is and (b) how it addresses
specific issues with Google.

Is this just about privacy/advertising? Is it about hosting your own stuff? Is
it about the poor customer support Google has? The shutdown of services? The
intelligence concerns with the us government?

We don't want to hear another nerd voice complain on the internet. None of it
will be new. Focus on what you're offering.

~~~
z0mbie42
Hi,

Thank you for the honest feedback.

Please take a look at the 2 following videos: [https://kerkour.fr/blog/the-
just-cause-and-the-infinite-game...](https://kerkour.fr/blog/the-just-cause-
and-the-infinite-game/)

To understand the structure of the article.

This article is not intended to everyone, it's intended to those who believe
what we believe. The early adopters, the potential contributors.

------
sonnyblarney
Communications point: the several pages of diatribe before the presentation of
your product is in the way of expressing the more material value of what you
are doing, i.e. the 'product'.

Your specific worldview is going to be less interesting to most people,
outside of HN'ers who probably don't mind.

You can summarize all of that in a tagline, and tuck away the elementary
school valedictorian bits on another page.

Also, the registration process before we even get to 'see what this is' is a
little much, it'd be nice to be able to 'get in there' without having to give
up my email address.

So try to get to they 'why it matters to your visitor' much quicker.

Good work though.

~~~
z0mbie42
Thank you for this honest feedback!

Today is the WHY announcement: [https://www.kerkour.fr/blog/the-just-cause-
and-the-infinite-...](https://www.kerkour.fr/blog/the-just-cause-and-the-
infinite-game/)

The what is an ongoing process :)

------
womd
I'm in! thx 4 sharing

~~~
womd
so I tried the app.... Design looks nice.... but the features ain't workin...
I like your texting-skills.... put your stuff to github.. I will help out
building stuff..... the tryItFree button on you page irritates me..... I know
we all need money.... maybe some Bitcoin-whale will help out, once we get some
cool features running?

