

Open Source Web Apps Aren't Viable; Let's Fix That - lebek
https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2014-07-21-open-source-web-apps-require-federated-hosting.html

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tracker1
I think part of it is a marketplace for apps, and a virtual server.. another
is the storage and actual runtime costs.

For example, I've wanted a web based email client for a while. Think
thunderbird in the cloud.. that provides a unified interface for all my email
accounts. Plenty of cloudmail services will import your other accounts, some
more cleanly than others. But not will let you keep the walls up between
accounts while not having to logout/in multiple times.

Another such case would be the vacuum left by igoogle, and google reader. I
would much rather have a simple app I could install that would use my dropbox
for storage/access. I've felt for a while that dropbox would be a natural
business to expand into this space. They could offer a limited/free
application host, and more under paid accounts.

A shared runner for free.. vs. dedicated for paid. The use of docker for
provisioning and their own storage could really be awesome. The fact that they
aren't _also_ in a lot of other businesses trying to leverage a monopoly or
monopoly like position would help too. I don't trust google, apple or
microsoft in this space. I also don't want to roll my own, so to speak. One
could do something like this on top of Azure, Joyent, Amazon or other cloud
systems, but I'd prefer it be relatively independent.

It's just my thoughts here... I wish them all the luck in the world.

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webmaven
Very interesting. Importantly, the alternative approach of adjusting licensing
to give apps that play by open source rules an advantage (ie. AGPL) hasn't
really worked out, as there are always more liberally-licensed alternatives
for components, so developers tend to simply avoid the more-viral ones, which
means that their ecosystems don't grow as fast, and then it is game over.

OTOH, I have a feeling that there may be a niche or two where this _can_ work,
but there has to be an interoperability argument with a strong network effect
in a federated network (eg. email). If _one_ of the social network players had
gone this route we'd be looking at a very different world today.

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PeterWhittaker
Demo fails to load anything at all with cookies disabled.

Front page loads fine, though. But detecting disabled cookies in the demo
would be a good idea.

