5 ms·

I need to be able to take with me not just my data, but my software (apps) Can you give an example of what you're talking about here?

oscargrouch 7y ago
Not the parent, but i understand this as the paradigm that containers and VM´s use for instance. Your applications and executables are also part of the data and move together with them.
- ithkuil 7y ago
  Yes, you can already install an application in a VM or container (or just instantiate one of the many ready to use images out there; shameless plug https://bitnami.com https://bitnami.com). But sandstorm is something else. It composes well. You can have an application that is a good document editor and another one that offers a spreadsheet that works for you, and have a unified layer that handles identity, authorization, document management (collections, sharing). Short slogans as "liberate your data" or "self host your apps" focus on the end goal without highlighting what is really stopping us from doing it: the integrated, cohesive experience many of us expect/need, especially in the enterprise environments. I recently went through an acquisition where we had to switch from gsuite to office 365. Oh my. What a mess. In the ideal world we would have had our stuff in sandstorm grains, and after the merger our new colleagues would have access to them even if we wouldn't necessarily have picked the same spreadsheet app for example. Now, for those of us that Word doesn't work well and were happy with Google Docs, well, we don't have a choice: we cannot possibly give a gsuite account to every employee in the larger company and thus we have to migrate in order to not preclude potential collaboration
kentonv 7y ago
I mean that if I think Google Sheets is the best online spreadsheet software, but I don't want to store my data on Google's servers, I should be able to run Google Sheets on some other servers. I shouldn't be forced to use some other, worse software if I choose different physical hosting. These should be independent decisions. SaaS providers basically have vertical monopolies here and I think that hurts consumers.
- solipsism 7y ago
  I see. Thanks for the explanation. Can you talk about how this informs your work on Cloudflare Workers? Should I be able to take my workers and run them elsewhere, and on software that's not second-rate, as you put it? Should all the proprietary code behind Cloudflare Workers be something I can pick up and take to another host?
  - kentonv 7y ago
    I think it would be pretty cool if apps written on Workers could run on whatever servers the end user of that app chooses, rather than what the app developer chooses. I'm not entirely sure yet how that would work but it's something I like to think about.
- anderspitman 7y ago
  What would you think of a model where instead of having the data and apps coupled at all, they're handled as separate problems? So for example you could pay one provider (or self host) to store your data, then use standard protocols to access the data (like HTTP for simple things, and maybe something more advanced and akin to Firebase for more complicated apps). So it doesn't matter where the apps are hosted. Each app can even be served from a different domain. You just point them at your "hard-drive on the web".
  - kentonv 7y ago
    Sorry, but that's exactly the model that I think doesn't work at all. - For reasonable performance and reliability, code needs to run close to data. You can't be accessing all data remotely over the internet. - Requirements to use "standard" data formats prevent apps from innovating new features not covered by the standards. - Different applications call for different kinds of databases, and there are still lots of new ideas to explore in database technology. It would suck if all apps were forced to use the lowest-common-denominator database protocol supported by user storage.
    - anderspitman 7y ago

oscargrouch 7y ago

Not the parent, but i understand this as the paradigm that containers and VM´s use for instance. Your applications and executables are also part of the data and move together with them.

ithkuil 7y ago
Yes, you can already install an application in a VM or container (or just instantiate one of the many ready to use images out there; shameless plug https://bitnami.com https://bitnami.com). But sandstorm is something else. It composes well. You can have an application that is a good document editor and another one that offers a spreadsheet that works for you, and have a unified layer that handles identity, authorization, document management (collections, sharing). Short slogans as "liberate your data" or "self host your apps" focus on the end goal without highlighting what is really stopping us from doing it: the integrated, cohesive experience many of us expect/need, especially in the enterprise environments. I recently went through an acquisition where we had to switch from gsuite to office 365. Oh my. What a mess. In the ideal world we would have had our stuff in sandstorm grains, and after the merger our new colleagues would have access to them even if we wouldn't necessarily have picked the same spreadsheet app for example. Now, for those of us that Word doesn't work well and were happy with Google Docs, well, we don't have a choice: we cannot possibly give a gsuite account to every employee in the larger company and thus we have to migrate in order to not preclude potential collaboration

kentonv 7y ago

I mean that if I think Google Sheets is the best online spreadsheet software, but I don't want to store my data on Google's servers, I should be able to run Google Sheets on some other servers. I shouldn't be forced to use some other, worse software if I choose different physical hosting. These should be independent decisions. SaaS providers basically have vertical monopolies here and I think that hurts consumers.

solipsism 7y ago
I see. Thanks for the explanation. Can you talk about how this informs your work on Cloudflare Workers? Should I be able to take my workers and run them elsewhere, and on software that's not second-rate, as you put it? Should all the proprietary code behind Cloudflare Workers be something I can pick up and take to another host?
- kentonv 7y ago
  I think it would be pretty cool if apps written on Workers could run on whatever servers the end user of that app chooses, rather than what the app developer chooses. I'm not entirely sure yet how that would work but it's something I like to think about.
anderspitman 7y ago
What would you think of a model where instead of having the data and apps coupled at all, they're handled as separate problems? So for example you could pay one provider (or self host) to store your data, then use standard protocols to access the data (like HTTP for simple things, and maybe something more advanced and akin to Firebase for more complicated apps). So it doesn't matter where the apps are hosted. Each app can even be served from a different domain. You just point them at your "hard-drive on the web".
- kentonv 7y ago
  Sorry, but that's exactly the model that I think doesn't work at all. - For reasonable performance and reliability, code needs to run close to data. You can't be accessing all data remotely over the internet. - Requirements to use "standard" data formats prevent apps from innovating new features not covered by the standards. - Different applications call for different kinds of databases, and there are still lots of new ideas to explore in database technology. It would suck if all apps were forced to use the lowest-common-denominator database protocol supported by user storage.
  - anderspitman 7y ago