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ownCloud is currently doing a full rewrite called "ocis" which uses the go-micro stack. It allows us to focus on the business-logic of file-syncing while takin

ownCloud is currently doing a full rewrite called "ocis" which uses the go-micro stack. It allows us to focus on the business-logic of file-syncing while taking care of all the micro-service plumbing. Disclaimer: I work for ownCloud.

emptysongglass 6y ago
Why did you guys continue to exist once Nextcloud broke out and took the market? I feel like the insistence of ownCloud and OpenOffice to defy the more open standards their forks (together with nearly all developers) moved toward is... aggravating? Stop trying to tell the river where to turn. It's already done.
- friendly_chap 6y ago
  > Stop trying to tell the river where to turn. It's already done. After almost a decade of HN I have to say that's one of the most un-HN comments I have ever read.
  - emptysongglass 6y ago
    I think you're confusing daring and innovation with legacy swaddling.
    - tscherno 6y ago
      A rewrite in golang where the intent is to solve a lot of scalability,architectural and operational issues which are present in the old codebase. Additionally we invested a lot in a unparalleled test-suite in this space which runs against the old and new codebase. How could we innovate further?
- choeger 6y ago
  Whoa, I really hope no one ever comes telling you such an offensive thing. If owncloud has customers and/or investors they can develop whatever they want and I will applaude them for sharing the code.
  - emptysongglass 6y ago
    It wouldn't be an issue for me if these legacy products either a. opted for more ethics where their fork showed them the way or b. if they actually produced innovation instead of desperately holding onto big company departments. OpenOffice, for example, has basically done nothing but maintenance. It's not something to be proud of.
    - capableweb 6y ago
      > nothing but maintenance. It's not something to be proud of What? Absolutely! Maintenance is hard. Maintenance of old/big/complex systems is even harder. Maintaining something for so long with substantial user base is definitely something to be proud for. Everything doesn't need to constantly add features in order for people to be proud of their work. Just adding bug/security fixes once you feel something is feature-complete is also OK. Not sure where this constant need for changes is coming from, but each to their own. But to look down on people who are doing maintenance is a real shitty thing to do. I hope you don't work together with others in open source, as they'll also feel saddened by your comment that they should not be proud unless they work on new features.
      - nickserv 6y ago
        Having maintained some old open source codebases, I can say that just keeping up with bitrot is at least 1/3 the workload. New versions of the OS, the language, the libraries, etc is not a minor thing to keep track of and update.
      - emptysongglass 6y ago
        I think you've run off with the ball a bit here. I have plenty of respect for maintainers. To the example we're addressing, of OpenOffice: nothing but maintenance is the big deal here. Maintenance is hard, yes but you can also find a developer or two to push the ball ahead a bit and Apache hasn't seen fit to do even that.
        capableweb 6y ago
- Dahoon 6y ago
  I see nothing wrong with OwnCloud doing business as they do. At least they aren't trying actively to kill off their competitors, like Netgate/Pfsense does and yet HNers seem to like them.
- tscherno 6y ago
  Seems like you are mixing up your claims and your premises a bit. Let me try to untangle this. The fork happened, yes, but it did not take the market as you claimed. Also, not “nearly all developers” but barely a dozen of the forkers’ closest friends left ownCloud. I currently have around 50 colleagues in engineering and support alone. ownCloud is doing rather fine, thank you, both as an open-source project and as a company, both with community users and enterprise users. There are multiple open-source file sync and share platforms. The reason is quite simple: There are multiple ways to implement a digitally sovereign file platform, and different needs call for different feature sets. ownCloud focuses on code quality, reliability and features that security conscious companies and institutions have come to expect. You do not have to like ownCloud, you do you. To your open standards point: I posted here because we use go-micro in our current rewrite, which is by the way under the Apache 2.0 licence. We cherish and embrace open standards and open source, so I don’t exactly get what you mean by “more open standards”. But to answer your first question: we did not die because we were and are in good health, still had and have work to do and, most importantly, have oodles of happy users and customers to serve.

emptysongglass 6y ago

Why did you guys continue to exist once Nextcloud broke out and took the market? I feel like the insistence of ownCloud and OpenOffice to defy the more open standards their forks (together with nearly all developers) moved toward is... aggravating? Stop trying to tell the river where to turn. It's already done.

friendly_chap 6y ago
> Stop trying to tell the river where to turn. It's already done. After almost a decade of HN I have to say that's one of the most un-HN comments I have ever read.
- emptysongglass 6y ago
  I think you're confusing daring and innovation with legacy swaddling.
  - tscherno 6y ago
    A rewrite in golang where the intent is to solve a lot of scalability,architectural and operational issues which are present in the old codebase. Additionally we invested a lot in a unparalleled test-suite in this space which runs against the old and new codebase. How could we innovate further?
choeger 6y ago
Whoa, I really hope no one ever comes telling you such an offensive thing. If owncloud has customers and/or investors they can develop whatever they want and I will applaude them for sharing the code.
- emptysongglass 6y ago
  It wouldn't be an issue for me if these legacy products either a. opted for more ethics where their fork showed them the way or b. if they actually produced innovation instead of desperately holding onto big company departments. OpenOffice, for example, has basically done nothing but maintenance. It's not something to be proud of.
  - capableweb 6y ago
    > nothing but maintenance. It's not something to be proud of What? Absolutely! Maintenance is hard. Maintenance of old/big/complex systems is even harder. Maintaining something for so long with substantial user base is definitely something to be proud for. Everything doesn't need to constantly add features in order for people to be proud of their work. Just adding bug/security fixes once you feel something is feature-complete is also OK. Not sure where this constant need for changes is coming from, but each to their own. But to look down on people who are doing maintenance is a real shitty thing to do. I hope you don't work together with others in open source, as they'll also feel saddened by your comment that they should not be proud unless they work on new features.
    - nickserv 6y ago
      Having maintained some old open source codebases, I can say that just keeping up with bitrot is at least 1/3 the workload. New versions of the OS, the language, the libraries, etc is not a minor thing to keep track of and update.
    - emptysongglass 6y ago
      I think you've run off with the ball a bit here. I have plenty of respect for maintainers. To the example we're addressing, of OpenOffice: nothing but maintenance is the big deal here. Maintenance is hard, yes but you can also find a developer or two to push the ball ahead a bit and Apache hasn't seen fit to do even that.
      - capableweb 6y ago
Dahoon 6y ago
I see nothing wrong with OwnCloud doing business as they do. At least they aren't trying actively to kill off their competitors, like Netgate/Pfsense does and yet HNers seem to like them.
tscherno 6y ago
Seems like you are mixing up your claims and your premises a bit. Let me try to untangle this. The fork happened, yes, but it did not take the market as you claimed. Also, not “nearly all developers” but barely a dozen of the forkers’ closest friends left ownCloud. I currently have around 50 colleagues in engineering and support alone. ownCloud is doing rather fine, thank you, both as an open-source project and as a company, both with community users and enterprise users. There are multiple open-source file sync and share platforms. The reason is quite simple: There are multiple ways to implement a digitally sovereign file platform, and different needs call for different feature sets. ownCloud focuses on code quality, reliability and features that security conscious companies and institutions have come to expect. You do not have to like ownCloud, you do you. To your open standards point: I posted here because we use go-micro in our current rewrite, which is by the way under the Apache 2.0 licence. We cherish and embrace open standards and open source, so I don’t exactly get what you mean by “more open standards”. But to answer your first question: we did not die because we were and are in good health, still had and have work to do and, most importantly, have oodles of happy users and customers to serve.