4 ms·

But that's only two services out of many. What about your mail server? What about your webserver where you host your personal website? What about your own git h

by _ak 11y ago

But that's only two services out of many. What about your mail server? What about your webserver where you host your personal website? What about your own git hosting? What about your own private slack-like service? If you follow the "host everything yourself" zealots consequently, all you do is maintain these services. Or you pay people to do that for you, which quickly gets more expensive than just paying for your SaaS subscriptions.

roblabla 11y ago
I'm currently hosting more and more services myself. I have my own chat service (a matrix.org HomeServer), my own website (a simple static website served by nginx) and my own git hosting (gitlab). I'm using a nixos box to host it all. Up until now, the maintenance overhead has been very, very low. The hardest bit is figuring out the configuration at first. Once the initial configuration is set up, I haven't had anything needing my time, other than the occasional systemwide update (takes about a minute, and can be automated if I'm not too lazy. This is nixos, rolling back is easy if something fails. Which it hasn't until now anyway). Obviously, hosting everything this way isn't a solution for many. I don't expect your average joe to be able to fiddle with configurations file, using the command line, or setting up a VPS. But I believe the problem is simply in tooling, and by making or improving some graphical, easy to use tools, the "federated dream" where everyone could simply host its own service and join a network isn't so impossible anymore.
drdaeman 11y ago
It highly depends on the person. If a person is good with software engineering and system administration, they don't need to pay more than few minute of their time once in a while, so SaaS are more expensive. I run various software that can be either used on subscription or self-hosted (like Sentry, GitLab CE or Drone) and my time investment in it was negligibly tiny (like... I find a deployment recipe, and run it, then check for the updates once in a while), compared to monetary fees of a hosted solution. If a person can't do the very basic maintenance, then maintenance costs are very high (they either have to learn stuff or pay someone to do every tiny task), so SaaS probably wins there, and probably by a large margin.
- jeena 11y ago
  I agree and I think it is like with cars. I for one did basically everything from changing the tires to replacing the body of the car after a crash (I don't have a car anymore). For me it was part of the fun, tinkering with stuff, learning, etc. Other people never touch anything in their cars and even pay for replacing the light bulbs. This obviously costs a lot of money if you let someone else do that for you. But you just have other priorities, that is ok.
bisby 11y ago
The initial config was a bit rough, but the initial config included docker and jenkins. Jenkins is basically a dashbaord for deploying docker containers now. My "maintenance" is clicking a build button when I need an update, and I could probably configure it to watch docker hub or git and run the builds automatically. I definitely don't "all you do is maintain these services"

by _ak 11y ago

roblabla 11y ago

I'm currently hosting more and more services myself. I have my own chat service (a matrix.org HomeServer), my own website (a simple static website served by nginx) and my own git hosting (gitlab). I'm using a nixos box to host it all. Up until now, the maintenance overhead has been very, very low. The hardest bit is figuring out the configuration at first. Once the initial configuration is set up, I haven't had anything needing my time, other than the occasional systemwide update (takes about a minute, and can be automated if I'm not too lazy. This is nixos, rolling back is easy if something fails. Which it hasn't until now anyway). Obviously, hosting everything this way isn't a solution for many. I don't expect your average joe to be able to fiddle with configurations file, using the command line, or setting up a VPS. But I believe the problem is simply in tooling, and by making or improving some graphical, easy to use tools, the "federated dream" where everyone could simply host its own service and join a network isn't so impossible anymore.

drdaeman 11y ago

It highly depends on the person. If a person is good with software engineering and system administration, they don't need to pay more than few minute of their time once in a while, so SaaS are more expensive. I run various software that can be either used on subscription or self-hosted (like Sentry, GitLab CE or Drone) and my time investment in it was negligibly tiny (like... I find a deployment recipe, and run it, then check for the updates once in a while), compared to monetary fees of a hosted solution. If a person can't do the very basic maintenance, then maintenance costs are very high (they either have to learn stuff or pay someone to do every tiny task), so SaaS probably wins there, and probably by a large margin.

jeena 11y ago
I agree and I think it is like with cars. I for one did basically everything from changing the tires to replacing the body of the car after a crash (I don't have a car anymore). For me it was part of the fun, tinkering with stuff, learning, etc. Other people never touch anything in their cars and even pay for replacing the light bulbs. This obviously costs a lot of money if you let someone else do that for you. But you just have other priorities, that is ok.

bisby 11y ago

The initial config was a bit rough, but the initial config included docker and jenkins. Jenkins is basically a dashbaord for deploying docker containers now. My "maintenance" is clicking a build button when I need an update, and I could probably configure it to watch docker hub or git and run the builds automatically. I definitely don't "all you do is maintain these services"