[GTALUG] OwnCloud vs Nextcloud?

[Blaise Alleyne]

On 11/07/16 10:19 AM, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
> Nextcloud forked OwnCloud last month and made its first release this 
> month.
> 
> <http://www.zdnet.com/article/nextcloud-adds-enterprise-support-and-ios-appliance/>
> Includes links to "Related Stories".
> 
> Does anyone have any insight into which would be worth adopting?  Or
> something else?
> 

This is the big blog post announcement:
http://karlitschek.de/2016/06/nextcloud/


> - it looks as if more devs went with Nextcloud
> 

Yes, it seems like all the key people, including some of the founders of the
project, are going with NextCloud. That seems very likely to be the future.

However, they'll need a bit of time. As an ownCloud user, I expect to move to
NextCloud some time, but not today or tomorrow -- maybe later in 2016 or in
2017, as they get things in order.


> - both are trying to make a commercial go of it.  I fear that this doesn't 
>   match my desire for open source from an open project.
> 

"Commercial" is too broad -- from what I gather, the NextCloud fork exists
specifically to do a better job at governance of the project from a software
freedom perspective, to avoid too much control in the business side.

For example, from that blog post ( http://karlitschek.de/2016/06/nextcloud/ ):
- We will no longer require a contributor license agreement from contributors.
- We no longer do dual-licensing
- The new trademark will be hold by an independent foundation.
- We no longer do internal development planing behind closed doors. Everything
will happen in the open.

These are the kinds of things they've forked over, getting that relationship
*right* between a free software project and a corporate sponsor.


There are commercial approaches, like Automattic's with WordPress, where you
have a separate foundation and a pretty healthy relationship with a primary
corporate sponsor. Apparently, large chunks of the ownCloud community found
there wasn't that proper governance and relationship through ownCloud Inc. -- at
least, that's how I've understood it.


> - I cringe at PHP.  Especially since I'd like to expose my
>   installation to the internet.
> 

PHP isn't inherently a problem, especially for sure a vibrant and strong project
like this. I'd be worried about some module written by a single developer or
something, but NextCloud/ownCloud being PHP itself is less important that the
health and strength and approach to security of the project and its developers.
*shrugs*


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