@SusanHR The UX usually, but not always, requires some comfort with the commandline. This is the easiest aspect to fix!
The process of getting a domain name often involves some jargon (I'm not entirely happy with the governance there).
If you want to run the server from your own home (you could instead rent a typically-virtual server instead) reusing some old hardware, you'd want to reinstall the OS on it & reconfigure your home router.
@SusanHR I'm not claiming that its within the expertise of the average joe, I am claiming it is generously within the skillset of the average developer.
Also I think it wouldn't be hard to do better (which is what my caveats were saying), especially if we got internet-providers onboard!
@alcinnz for me the big issue is not the difficulty, but the time involved. Also, the potential for unbounded time loss. If something (usually an upgrade) goes wrong, it could take hours to sort out. I have small kids and other things in my life. I don’t want that kind of problem hanging over my head.
I do self host some things though, like my own project Dropserver obviously, and honestly it has gone well (on a linode VM, not at home).
@teleclimber My solution to that: Push back against on complications!
For my personal uses its surprising just how very far nginx & SSH goes!
Self-hosting for business uses on the otherhand...
As for my Argonaut Constellation projects on the otherhand... Maddy, SourceHut, & Snikket are low-maintenance! Though I wouldn't want to rely on those self-hosted services.
@alcinnz The solution is what @teleclimber's Dropserver and Sandstorm are doing: Extremely secure packaged software which can be safely updated, or work fine (and secure!) when never updated.
@ocdtrekkie@alcinnz I’m trying hard to make it so a Dropserver appspace is always in a state where it can be backed up and moved and recreated somewhere to minimize the potential for enduring head aches.
But someone still needs to set up a DS-host instance and its underlying machine and OS and keep it updated and secure, and that’s still a pain.
@teleclimber@alcinnz Yeah initial setup and network routing is the hard problem, but as long as we avoid difficult reconfiguration for individual apps, there's a fairly constrained recovery time to any given environment.
@ocdtrekkie@alcinnz you also need to learn about the software you’re about to install. Is it well designed? Maintained? Will the config options suit my needs? How many other things do I need to install? Etc… I understand not many people have bothered installing ds-host, it’s not trivial and yet it’s also not that bad at all.
Whatever I can do to improve it it will never be able to compete with a hosted Dropserver on initial run. “Choose a username and password” is hard to beat.
@teleclimber@alcinnz I still really think something like Home Assistant Yellow is the goal. Hard for a small project to manage, but ship someone a box they can plug into their router, with a QR code on it to connect an app for initial setup on their phone, something like that. For cloud-based deployments, some of the hosting companies have some nice auto-deploy features one could target too.
@ocdtrekkie@alcinnz absolutely. I think this is something several projects could get together to create. Share the costs of R&D, development, upgrade infrastructure, etc… then each project can add their stuff on top of it, and maybe make a custom branded outer shell, and they can ship.
Home assistant is a bit special because they interface with all kinds of hardware. Lots of home server type projects just need power , Ethernet and usb for external storage. Easy to make generic.
@alcinnz so far I’ve managed to stay away from docker but it’s getting difficult. Lots of projects, like Snikket, just assume you’re using docker and too bad for you if you aren’t. (I think there was a discussion about this last week)
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