
Japan to add millions of new nodes to federated Nextcloud network - r3bl
https://nextcloud.com/blog/japan-to-add-millions-of-new-nodes-to-federated-nextcloud-network/
======
philamonster
Not to derail but I've been running ownCloud at home since 2013 and have
considered switching since the fork but wanted to see Nextcloud mature a bit
more. Any long-time ownCloud users have experience with switching and can
offer advice or info on some of the pitfalls, if any? What are upgrades going
forward really like with incremental updates and major version releases etc?

I often end up holding ownCloud updates back in apt as there's always this
sense of dread that I'll have trouble getting the app out of maintenance mode.
Versions 9+ have been better but upgrades sucked in the beginning even as a
home user not using disk encryption.

~~~
jerf
I'm using ownCloud on one system and considering migrating it to another;
should I switch to NextCloud instead? Seeking opinions.

For myself, my usage is small enough that I don't care if my "migration" is
that I just copy over the two user's worth of data I have in the file sharing
and set up the one shared folder I have again by hand. (It's a home cloud, not
corporate.) In fact in some ways it'll be easier than what I was planning on
doing.

~~~
jospoortvliet
try nextcloud.com/migration - but keep in mind that it is slowly getting
harder and harder to switch. We try to keep it easy and smooth but ownCloud is
backporting a lot of potentially breaking changes in their 'stable' branch,
rewriting low-level code etc. Their engineers are of course new to the code
base so they make, well, different choices than we would make :D

While feature-wise, we're still not really missing anything oC has, the
underlying codebase is really diverging, we're not really merging any code
from oC since a year now...

Migration will become a real, risky pita at some point I'm afraid. Apps are
already dropping compatibility and mobile apps, too.

~~~
jerf
Thank you.

Like I said, a brute-force migration for me isn't too big a deal. Half the
work for things like switching apps on my phone I'd have to do anyhow.

~~~
alistproducer2
I just did a switch from oc 10 to nc 13. The docs work fine but are missing
some potential table column additions (mostly with apps) which are needed to
get things working smoothly. Thankfully the logs will tell you exactly what
needs to be done.

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cs702
Sounds impressive.

If Nextcloud continues to add features and get more traction, perhaps it can
become a viable alternative to Google drive/mail/calendar?

Does anyone here have experience deploying Nextcloud in a business setting?

~~~
713233eb
We are using NC with ~250 employees, works fine and runs smooth as butter,
syncs to desktop well but many prefer to use the web interface. We are using
LDAP auth, it powers our whole stack (Zimbra, OTRS, Debian/Ubuntu servers,
Wifi, remote desktops, custom ERP, etc). Honestly, we have more problems with
custom built software ($$$) than open source that is free for all. Sometimes I
wish we could alter our internal workflows in a blink of an eye to leave out
the greedy companies with whom we have software development agreements as
legacy.

~~~
cs702
How well does calendar/contacts/email/docs syncing work with mobile devices?

~~~
codethief
Synchronizing calendar & contacts works great in my experience! I'm using
DAVDroid for that.

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JChase2
Set up nextcloud on my home network and share stuff with friends and family
that way, never got into federation but that's pretty awesome! Especially
since it supports encryption and privacy in a pretty easy to use way.

~~~
ekianjo
Is encryption ready to use safely or is it still experimental?

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r3bl
It is stable since v13 hit stable.

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justinclift
Hopefully this get implemented _extremely well_.

Anything else could make for some really terrible data breach possibilities.
At scale. :/

~~~
justinclift
Hmmm, NextCloud has a bug bounty program:

[https://hackerone.com/nextcloud](https://hackerone.com/nextcloud)

The maximum's seem pretty low though (to me), considering it's used for
housing peoples personal data.

~~~
lima
A bug bounty only helps with a very narrow set of security issues.

For instance, the deployment and updating process (which Nextcloud has no
control over) is just as important.

~~~
justinclift
Good point. :)

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jernst
In the meantime, if you don't want to wait or don't live in Japan, there is
the UBOSBox Nextcloud server appliance we announced yesterday:
[https://indiecomputing.com/](https://indiecomputing.com/) (disclaimer: yes,
my company)

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codethief
> Nextcloud servers are not alone. The Nextcloud Federation feature enables
> users from one Nextcloud server to share with users on another server,
> creating a globally spanning network of private, self-hosted clouds. A
> federated cloud id, comparable to an email address, enables users to
> identify one another […]

I wonder what domain they'll be using for these self-hosted Nextcloud
instances. Are they going to allow for custom domains?

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indigodaddy
Are all the component of NextCloud, including NextCoud Talk, open source, or
are some features/components paid/enterprise/subscription only?

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Walkman
I don't know about any paid only plugin. Nextcloud is forked from ownCloud
because the original founders of ownCloud didn't like the direction where
ownCloud was heading (paid only features for enterprises) and they wanted to
open source every part of it. They are unrealistically good people, making an
unlikely good product :) See their reasoning of forking here:

\-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTKvLSnFL6I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTKvLSnFL6I)

\-
[http://karlitschek.de/2016/06/nextcloud/](http://karlitschek.de/2016/06/nextcloud/)

\-
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12919330](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12919330)

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mxuribe
This effort is to be applauded. Kudos to NEC and especially NextCloud; I wish
them both luck!

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thekyle
If these Nextcloud instances are being installed on routers then they likely
won't have access to very much storage space.

~~~
abricot
Most routers support attaching a USB hard- or flash drive. This might become
more convenient when they add Nexcloud to the router.

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hazelnut
Meaning they’re installing PHP on all routers to support Nextcloud? Not the
expert here but that doesn’t sound too secure to me.

~~~
tomcooks
PHP can be secure

~~~
EvangelicalPig
Most people's "PHP is inherently insecure" perception comes from projects like
phpBB 2.x circa a decade ago and the shared hosts (still?) running an ancient
version of PHP.

~~~
paulie_a
And WordPress, drupal and honestly every other php project custom or open
source.

PHP needs to go away.

~~~
washadjeffmad
Careful, there are a lot of WP, Drupal, and PHP devs here, and they make up a
much bigger chunk of the front end developer pool than you'd expect
post-2000s.

And from sitting in on a lot of leadership meetings, they're one of the few
groups that perpetually seems to be concerned with something they depend on
sunsetting.

As long as they're passing with ISO, I just stay out of it.

~~~
paulie_a
That's fine if they are upset. Php is a scourge on the internet. If php on the
server and Java on the desktop were wiped out. The internet would be a better
place.

