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@Tek aEvl That would hardly even be possible. That is, possible maybe, but not feasible.
Essentially, anyone would have to be able to grab their iPhone and load a professionally-hardened LAMP stack + SSL certificate etc. etc. + Friendica from the App Store, just like so, without any prior knowledge.
First of all, not everyone should run a server. No, really. I'm serious.
I keep seeing in OpenSim (think free, open-source, decentralised, federated Second Life) what happens when the "wrong" people run their own grid. Not only people who lack the mental maturity to run a server, but also people who lack the technical knowledge to run a server. Everything was fine and dandy when you needed the command line to install and maintain an OpenSim grid.
But then came an OpenSim "distro" built as a point-and-click, pre-configured-for-maximum-convenience Windows application for complete dumb-dumbs that doesn't require you to know anything about servers, and that actually doesn't even require you to know that much about computers. Install it, double-click the icon on the desktop, and you've got your own grid. Of the well over 3,000 or even over 4,000 grids, well over 90% run on this software. Many of them have issues because their owners don't know what they're doing.
Server software available as mobile apps in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store would enable people who have never even touched a computer in their lives to run their own servers. People who know zilch about computers. People who don't even know what a file or a folder is. People who know precious little about their phones, and when their phones have some booboo, they either take them to the shop, or they discard them and buy new ones.
You want such people to run a full-blown, hardened Web server with SSL encryption, with an attached MariaDB or PostgreSQL database, with an included mail transport agent or even a full-blown mail server etc.? Without even knowing what exactly is happening behind that icon? Like, tap that icon, and you've got your own server on a level that takes a professional-grade admin hours to set up perfectly, and I'm not even talking about maintaining and occasionally upgrading it yet?
Also, phones make for bad Web servers for five more reasons.
One, if you have a public Web server on your phone, it has to be online 24/7 with ideally no interruption, constantly with a high-quality, high-reliability, high-speed connection. Other Fediverse servers will constantly be sending stuff to your server and pulling stuff from your server. But you may end up someplace where mobile Internet is bad. Or your quota may run out, and you may end up with a super-low connection at the end of the month. And switching between mobile and WiFi while there's a transmission going on is a very bad idea.
Two, this also means your phone must reliably be on 24/7. If it shuts down because the battery is empty, that's bad for your Fediverse server app.
Three, a server should not change its IP address just like so. But if your phone switches from your home WiFi to mobile to the public WiFi on a bus to mobile to the public WiFi on another bus to mobile to the public WiFi at some café within, like, half an hour, it does change its IP address all the time. And this implies that the transport company and the café owner let you run a public Web server through their WiFi and upload hundreds of MB of data while commuting or having your mocha.
Four, a server on a phone is a bad idea. A server on a phone that's running on battery is an even worse idea. Depending on what's going on on your Fediverse server, your phone may be running at full blast constantly. Do you hate it when you watch videos on your phone, and the battery goes out quickly? Well, with a Fediverse server on your phone, the battery will go out even more quickly. When you're out and about, and you have your phone with you (of course you do), you need to have your phone connected to a power bank the size of a brick. Otherwise, you leave home in the morning, and by noon, your phone shuts down.
In the meantime, by the way, your phone may be running so hot that you can barely touch it. Good luck chatting on it or using it as an actual phone.
And five, a Fediverse server app will eat through your data plan in no time. So you're on Friendica with a few hundred contacts, with a few hundred posts of your own, with various media on your server. And you want to play it safe, and you get yourself, like, a 10GB plan. But even if it's a private, single-user node, it will eat through your plan in days.
The ideal environment for a Friendica node is not a phone. It's a rack iron with a big honkin' Intel Xeon CPU, with fans that scream at full blast constantly, with ample of internal storage in a RAID array, running a sturdy GNU/Linux distro with no graphical components, connected permanently through wires (or even fibre) that can reliably transfer gigabytes per second in-bound as well as out-bound.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta
Essentially, anyone would have to be able to grab their iPhone and load a professionally-hardened LAMP stack + SSL certificate etc. etc. + Friendica from the App Store, just like so, without any prior knowledge.
First of all, not everyone should run a server. No, really. I'm serious.
I keep seeing in OpenSim (think free, open-source, decentralised, federated Second Life) what happens when the "wrong" people run their own grid. Not only people who lack the mental maturity to run a server, but also people who lack the technical knowledge to run a server. Everything was fine and dandy when you needed the command line to install and maintain an OpenSim grid.
But then came an OpenSim "distro" built as a point-and-click, pre-configured-for-maximum-convenience Windows application for complete dumb-dumbs that doesn't require you to know anything about servers, and that actually doesn't even require you to know that much about computers. Install it, double-click the icon on the desktop, and you've got your own grid. Of the well over 3,000 or even over 4,000 grids, well over 90% run on this software. Many of them have issues because their owners don't know what they're doing.
Server software available as mobile apps in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store would enable people who have never even touched a computer in their lives to run their own servers. People who know zilch about computers. People who don't even know what a file or a folder is. People who know precious little about their phones, and when their phones have some booboo, they either take them to the shop, or they discard them and buy new ones.
You want such people to run a full-blown, hardened Web server with SSL encryption, with an attached MariaDB or PostgreSQL database, with an included mail transport agent or even a full-blown mail server etc.? Without even knowing what exactly is happening behind that icon? Like, tap that icon, and you've got your own server on a level that takes a professional-grade admin hours to set up perfectly, and I'm not even talking about maintaining and occasionally upgrading it yet?
Also, phones make for bad Web servers for five more reasons.
One, if you have a public Web server on your phone, it has to be online 24/7 with ideally no interruption, constantly with a high-quality, high-reliability, high-speed connection. Other Fediverse servers will constantly be sending stuff to your server and pulling stuff from your server. But you may end up someplace where mobile Internet is bad. Or your quota may run out, and you may end up with a super-low connection at the end of the month. And switching between mobile and WiFi while there's a transmission going on is a very bad idea.
Two, this also means your phone must reliably be on 24/7. If it shuts down because the battery is empty, that's bad for your Fediverse server app.
Three, a server should not change its IP address just like so. But if your phone switches from your home WiFi to mobile to the public WiFi on a bus to mobile to the public WiFi on another bus to mobile to the public WiFi at some café within, like, half an hour, it does change its IP address all the time. And this implies that the transport company and the café owner let you run a public Web server through their WiFi and upload hundreds of MB of data while commuting or having your mocha.
Four, a server on a phone is a bad idea. A server on a phone that's running on battery is an even worse idea. Depending on what's going on on your Fediverse server, your phone may be running at full blast constantly. Do you hate it when you watch videos on your phone, and the battery goes out quickly? Well, with a Fediverse server on your phone, the battery will go out even more quickly. When you're out and about, and you have your phone with you (of course you do), you need to have your phone connected to a power bank the size of a brick. Otherwise, you leave home in the morning, and by noon, your phone shuts down.
In the meantime, by the way, your phone may be running so hot that you can barely touch it. Good luck chatting on it or using it as an actual phone.
And five, a Fediverse server app will eat through your data plan in no time. So you're on Friendica with a few hundred contacts, with a few hundred posts of your own, with various media on your server. And you want to play it safe, and you get yourself, like, a 10GB plan. But even if it's a private, single-user node, it will eat through your plan in days.
The ideal environment for a Friendica node is not a phone. It's a rack iron with a big honkin' Intel Xeon CPU, with fans that scream at full blast constantly, with ample of internal storage in a RAID array, running a sturdy GNU/Linux distro with no graphical components, connected permanently through wires (or even fibre) that can reliably transfer gigabytes per second in-bound as well as out-bound.
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta

hub.netzgemeinde.euOkay, so what is this OpenSim thing?The free, decentralised metaverse is older than you may think