Open Source

SaaS

Using SaaS software seemingly inevitably leads us to give up our freedom on the internet. Why? Because you are using a program that you don’t have access to, and that in most cases doesn’t even run you your own device.

The cloud, in most cases as of now, makes this a fact for most people.

One could argue that GNU exists on the far side of the privacy/free software/open source “spectrum”, being quite adamant about these things.

Whether they really matter in the big scheme of things is hard to say. Personally I tend do lean towards the GNU side of the spectrum.

This essay argues along these lines: Who Does That Server Really Serve?.

The general problem I find is that in defining your own computing they assume that the computator (the person that computes) actually knows how to compute something. This is very often not the case.

Furthermore this is what makes SaaS and modern computing solutions what they are, you don’t have to know about nor understand the stack to use the product. That is; the customer generally exists on top (or in the top layers) of the abstraction ladder.

Local first software

Write software that is local first; make network, sync and connectivity optional.

“The cloud is just someone else’s computer”

Nice mention of CRDTs: Conflict-free replicated data types.

Local-first software: You own your data, in spite of the cloud