The topic of self-hosted cloud software comes up often but I haven’t seen anyone mention owncloud infinite scale (the rewrite in Go).
I started my cloud experience with owncloud years ago. Then there was a schism and almost all the active devs left for the nextcloud fork.
I used nextcloud from it’s inception until last year but like many others it always felt brittle (easy to break something) and half baked (features always seemed to be at 75% of what you want).
As a result I decided to go with Seafile and stick to the Unix philosophy. Get an app that does one thing very well rather than a mega app that tries to do everything.
Seafile does this very well. Super fast, works with single sign on etc. No bloat etc.
Then just the other day I discovered that owncloud has a full rewrite. No php, no Apache etc. Check the github, multiple active devs with lots of activity over the last year etc. The project seems stronger than ever and aims to fix the primary issues of nextcloud/owncloud PHP. Also designed for cloud deployment so works well with docker, should be easy to configure via docker variables instead of config files mapped into the container etc.
Anyways, the point of this thread is:
- If you never heard of it like me then check it out
- If you have used it please post your experiences compared to NextCloud, Seafile etc.
Is it Free Software? In the repo is a LICENSE file, saying it’s Apache licensed. But I also found an EULA saying it’s not Free Software…
That’s indeed confusing. The wording linked below suggests the eula is for packages distributed by owncloud. so to my understanding the source itself and any third party packages don’t need to care about it.
https://github.com/owncloud/ocis?tab=readme-ov-file#end-user-license-agreement
Apache isn’t a copyleft license. I guess they (and everyone) can just copy or compile it, make it a derivative work and say it’s now non-free and terms and conditions apply.
I mean the GitHub repo has a license file which says it’s Apache 2.0. And 3h) of the EULA says it doesn’t apply to open source components. So it kinda doesn’t apply to itself. I think you’re right, it’s Free Software after all and them saying “Some builds […]” means it’s the binaries distributed by them. IANAL and it kinda contradicts the Apache license which explicitly states I am allowed to redistribute copies both modified and not modified and both in object and source form. I’m not sure why they do it and if there are components missing in the GitHub repo.
I only read the beginning but it says you can use it for private deployments but can’t use it commercially. Seems reasonable. Any specific issues?
Hmm. I guess that works, too. I’m just a nerd and really like Free Software. Almost exclusively use it. My phone runs a custom ROM with just a few unfree apps and without Google services, all my computers run Linux. Even the internet router does, and my IoT smart sockets run Tasmota or ESPHome. I like the 4 freedoms and the culture behind it. I participate and regularly contribute. All of that is mostly personal preference. I guess I could as well live comfortably with using Google Drive, but I choose not to. Source-available software would allow me to look at the code, something proprietary software doesn’t allow. But that’s pretty much it. I often can’t remix and share it as I like. I don’t have the freedom to decide to use it as it pleases me. And depending on the exact license, I can’t even invite my friends and family to use the services I set up…
It’s just the line I draw. And with the software I really rely on and use daily, I’m pretty strict. Either it provides me with the Four Essential Freedoms of Free Software as lined out by RMS in the eighties, or I don’t volunteer to use it. I have no issues though with other people making different choices.