Before the web, software publishing was inconvenient, both for users and developers: copying listings from magazines, mailing floppy discs & CDs, finding that t

Before the web, software publishing was inconvenient, both for users and developers: copying listings from magazines, mailing floppy discs & CDs, finding that there is a bad sector on disk #52 of your Linux distribution... But once you had the software, you could use it on your local data, fully under your control. The Web changed that landscape dramatically: it is arguably the platform with the lowest barrier to entry for all parties. Unfortunately this has been abused by huge siloed services. They are attractive because they are free, and ... actually useful, but they make you lose control over your data, how you can process and manage it. Sandstorm aims at fixing that imbalance, putting back the user in control, as do a few other "easy self hosting" systems.