460 sats \ 9 replies \ @03365d6a53 27 Jul 2023 \ on: Introducing Federated Computer tech
Is it me or something doesn't smell right here?
The post (by a freebie acount) is immediately shilled by two other freebie accounts.
The project bangs on about open source, but the source couldn't be found (just an empty github organisation). Where is this gitea box?
Also, why is there no explanation of how this technology actually works? I found the docs, but there doesn't seem to be an architecture diagram, nor any technical service descriptions whatsoever.
How do we know this isn't just a bunch of cloud VMs?
I appreciate that sales are important, and 'fluffy marketing websites' probably make more money than dry white papers, but if you're offering self-sovereignty, doesn't that also mean being sovereign from your good selves?
Start 9 are leagues ahead in this regard. Their offering is totally open source, you can run on your own (sovereign) machine, and I'm confused why people think it's too hard to administrate - it basically runs itself.
If you can't run a Start 9 box, then I say, you deserve to pay 39 american dollars a month to this foreign company to host your data in their black box.
(I'm being abrasive, but if you can set the record straight, I will eat my words)
Also, why choose a name so close to Fedi? https://fedimint.org/ "Fedimint is a framework for federated applications. "
I agree the site could do with more documentation, I have to read a lot of the site and I have tech background to really understand what is going on. It'd be nice to see a simple view of what you are getting (200G storage, email, matrix, In an encrypted VM, etc, etc) on the front page. Here is what I understand:
This product looks to be a hosted virtual machine that federated computer encrypts with your credentials. Since they encrypt the VM with your credentials they can't actually see your data in the virtual machine. The virtual machine has the ability to host a bunch of open-source software, and a control panel that helps you setup/manage all the OSS.
This offering reminds me of https://librem.one/ , although librem.one is just offering similar OSS and they host it for you in a shared env.
Their control plane not being open-source is a bummer, but this is common for software (look at ledger's software). As mentioned by @federatedcomputer, they plan to open source the control plane, and if using a closed source tool is a no-go for you, then you'll have to wait to see if they do actually release the source-code.
My concern with it is if it is an encrypted VM running on a hypervisor somewhere:
- How do we know it's actually encrypted, how do we know it's encrypted with the creds you provided and that the federatedcomputer doesn't know your credentials.
- Is it possible to get into the encrypted VM since federatedcomputer owns and I assume has root access to the hypervisor hosting the VM?
All in all I think this is a very cool product, I think the price is good too. I'm excited to see where this project goes, good luck!
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"Federated" is also on my bullshit-bingo for centralized shitcoin projects. Without having looked any deeper into this, the word alone is a red flag
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Start9 is a diffferent approach. Most people do not want to run a server. I'm also confused about your mention of price. If you buy a $1000 server from someone else, that's more than 2 years of Federated and you don't have to play systems admin or devops person
Regarding open source. We haven't yet open sourced our control plane, and we will, but every part of the solution is open source: nextcloud, jitsi, matrix, vaultwarden, wireguard, listmonk, baserow, etc. Our control software is still in active development. The founding team at Federated Computer were behind the open-sourcing of some very significant tools in the past such as node.js, smartOS, manta. We will open source when we can best be of service to the community. Meanwhile, for customers that need a solution, it is an open-source solution because, if they want to, as you say, host it themselves to be truly "self sovereign", every one of the parts is open source and free.
Federated Computer was founded in 2021. I don't know about Fedimint.
Best.
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Charging $40 a month seems hella expensive for free and open source tools. I run all of these tools myself out of my house. Seems sketchy.
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Sketchy? That's called convenience. I don't think you're valuing your time correctly. And if you are running email, spam protection, ddos protection, nextcloud, jitsi, element, matrix, listmonk, vaultwarden, baserow, wireguard configured like tailscale, caddy integrated with gitea for static site publishing, gitea for code managment, castopod, wordpress, and a global CDN for performance, well, I take my hat off to you! Would you like a job? Best wishes!
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indeed that is a lot of work and the convenience factor is quite something.
getting off google microsoft is also important.
my main beef really is the lack of transparency - seems off to tout how "open source" all the other projects are, that you're profiting from, without making your own product open source
but if you're contributing back, that's something
how does your product compare to https://cloudron.io which offers all these services on a self-hosted (sovereign) basis for 15 bucks a month? (which excludes server costs to be fair)
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All of it minus WordPress and caddy yes. I haven't ran WordPress in over a decade. It's not that I don't like it, I just no longer blog. I also prefer nginx reverse proxies over caddy.
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That's the power of these open-source tools. You get to make a choice. Federated Computer customers get to make a choice. Hats off to you. Best wishes!
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