[Freedombox-discuss] the cloud desktop
Joseph Annino
joeaguy at joeaguy.com
Sat Feb 26 18:23:38 UTC 2011
I have been thinking about a lot of the same issues as Freedombox since
last LibePlanet where RMS presented the "Who does that server really
serve?" paper. The reaction from the crowd seemed to be "but I really
like all these Google, etc, cloud services, how can I keep using this
kind of thing?". These services I sort of think of as being a kind of
"desktop in the cloud". They provide a simple easy to use consistent
interface that will work anywhere. That is the huge appeal, but they of
course have all the pitfalls of central control currently. I wanted to
try and make a free equivalent that gives people back choice and control
over their data.
This seems to be a little different than the discussion of Freedombox is
see at the moment, being more focused on making a linux distro out of
existing parts. That is really important, but I think the next step is
to to make a free cloud desktop, a sort of "gnome for the cloud".
I have been working on something like this for a while, which I have
called "Pick Our Your Cloud". You can link to its gitorious repository
from yrcloud.com. I've made it all AGPLv3.
I haven't shared this project with many people, all the work on it so
far is just me, and just in whatever spare time I can find. It is far
from complete. I have started with a gmail equivalent, since that is
where Google started, and messaging serves as a good central point to
branch out from. It is implemented as a Django app that communicates
with a JS/jQuery frontend via JSON-RPC calls. I am hoping that over
time it can grow into a sort of desktop that lets you get at several
apps that can share some common facilities and integration. Think of
how all the various services Google offers all work together via your
Google account.
I was originally targeting virtualized clouds, like Amazon's new micro
instances. This code should be able to run fine on a variety of low end
hardware, so long as it can have a reasonable amount of flash storage.
Certainly an Atom (or equivalent) box could handle it. I also want to
try this out on some of the $100 variety of ARM plugs, like the PogoPlug.
So I know I am doing a lot of plugging my own project. I could use some
advice and collaboration on it, and maybe someday it could sit on top of
the Freedombox OS. But regardless of what happens with my project, I
wanted to open up the discussion about a "cloud desktop", how do we make
a user experience that is useful to a wide audience.
I live near Danbury CT, so I can always get down to NYC if anything is
ever going on. This is an exciting project and I would like to help out.
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