Nextcloud
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00:00
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Pauli exclusion principleOffice suiteServer (computing)Computer fileInteractive televisionCollaborationismComputing platformWeb browserFilesharing-SystemTelecommunicationOrder (biology)System callPoint cloudData exchangeRoutingService (economics)Message passingBridging (networking)Similarity (geometry)Integrated development environmentMobile appPresentation of a groupFamilyShared memoryOnline chatDifferent (Kate Ryan album)SynchronizationOpen setAddress spaceVideoconferencingClient (computing)Uniform boundedness principleProfil (magazine)Game controllerPoint (geometry)AreaData storage deviceStaff (military)Instance (computer science)Projective planeOpen sourceState of matterSystem administratorSoftwareMereologyMoment (mathematics)Universe (mathematics)Real-time operating systemStandard deviationContext awarenessHand fanMixture modelConnectivity (graph theory)Mixed realityLine (geometry)Demo (music)Mobile WebFreewareTerm (mathematics)BitBuildingMultiplicationPolygon meshPhase transitionPixelSlide ruleCore dumpPolar coordinate systemLattice (order)ImplementationLecture/Conference
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AreaWeb 2.0Standard deviationMobile appComputer fileMultiplication signOffice suitePoint cloudIntegrated development environmentImplementationInstance (computer science)SoftwareSoftware developerDirected graphMatrix (mathematics)Ocean currentLine (geometry)State of matterServer (computing)Element (mathematics)Public key certificatePoint (geometry)Revision controlElectronic program guideProcess (computing)Connectivity (graph theory)Moment (mathematics)Client (computing)MeasurementSet (mathematics)RootFilesharing-SystemData storage deviceLink (knot theory)Communications protocolDirect numerical simulationHuman migrationBridging (networking)Right angleSynchronizationLecture/Conference
21:30
Computer animation
Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:05
Hello everybody, unfortunately we have some problems with the project at the moment so you can't see my slides But I try to explain as good as possible what what you should see in if everything would work So, yeah As I was already introduced, my name is Björn Schiessle. I'm active in free software for more than 20 years now
00:27
and working on this next cloud and technology for more than six years and Two and a half years ago co-founded next cloud together with my colleagues So I want to start with a
00:40
Quick introduction and look a little bit into the past how all the internet and all the network stuff from start at the beginning and if you look back and in 10-20 years ago the Internet was completely decentralized. This was totally normal that the world wide web Everybody could set up his own web server, run his home page, email, Usenet
01:03
everything we used back then was completely decentralized and was completely normal that everybody could set up his own presence somewhere in the internet and connect with others and exchange and share their data and During the years we saw a shift here because These days if you look how the internet works and what services people usually use most of the time
01:27
Few two to three services which create huge data silos where people upload all the data, share the data, where they communicate with each other, but it's no longer really
01:43
this decentralized and connected how it used to be. These days you can probably count it on one hand how many services are out there which are probably 99% of the population uses for their daily work, exchanging files, communication and it's not only that this puts all the data in one place with
02:02
such is already something critical because you also have to ask where are this data? Today everybody talks about the cloud but what is the cloud and where are the data stored in which country if I have any issues with it to which which laws applies to it who has access to the data if I click on on a button to
02:23
delete the file are they really deleted if I share it with my friend are they really only accessible to my friend? So there are a lot of questions which came up here and also, it's not only these questions about who has access to the data and where they are stored, but also if you look at
02:40
communication and collaboration it all the service creates some kind of wallet garden so if you as long as you use the service they are really nice they work they provide you all the features you want to have but as soon as you try to connect with someone outside of this wallet garden who uses different service it's really hard or even impossible, and it's also really hard if you decide at some point
03:02
okay, I want to switch from service A to service B to really get their data somewhere out. So that's how the internet unfortunately to a large extent for most users looks today and I think to solve this we need three ingredients basically the one thing is we need to make it possible again to people to self host their infrastructure so that we get back to this more
03:28
decentralized way it needs to be possible that like in the old days where everybody could set up a home page or his own mail server everybody should also be able to set up his own cloud platform to collaborate on files or his own communication platform and of course not everybody has to be a
03:43
technical person who really runs his own servers, but you can also if you have the general possibility to self host then you can also imagine that there are a huge bandwidth of different providers you can choose from and or you can group together with your friends with your sports club whatever and there's one person who might be able to host it
04:01
but in order to decentralize the internet again I think it's important that you can take the software and put it on the place where you want it and host it down. And another important point I think is that it's built on open standards and it's interoperable as possible because if you want to self host your stuff of course you still want to work together with people so you need to have a way
04:23
to connect these different services and also to move from one service to another. And a third ingredient I think is important in order to use the to be able to self host it and to have this interoperability and to move data around I think it's important that the stuff is free software.
04:43
I think I don't have to tell this audience here I think we are in FOSTA and everybody knows about free software and how important it is but I think that's the three ingredients in order to make the internet and the services on top again more free and decentralized. And that's exactly what we at Nextcloud are providing.
05:03
If you look at Nextcloud what it actually provides so I give my slide I call it the DNA of Nextcloud. Nextcloud is 100 percent free software. There is no proprietary no non free component there is no open core no enterprise versions which restricts the user. It's completely free software all the server components are licensed under the new HEPL and the clients for desktop,
05:25
mobiles and so on are licensed under the GPL. We base Nextcloud as much as possible on open standards whenever a standard exists there we reuse it for example with WebDAF or file exchange. We use CALDAF and CARDAF to exchange calendar and address books.
05:42
We collaborate with a lot of universities in Europe here to create something which is called federated sharing which I came back to later which also creates an open standard to exchange data across Nextcloud servers. Of course you can Nextcloud self host as you want or you can choose a provider there is a huge list of providers out there
06:01
so if you say OK maybe running my own server is not exactly what I want. You can also choose the provider you want. And as I said with this federation we also work really hard to connect this cloud. So Nextcloud started out if you look at the history as a file sync and share solution. So if you start Nextcloud it looks quite similar to what you are used to from Dropbox or Google Drive or something.
06:27
You just have your file list you can upload files there you can share these files with others. We have sync lines for the desktop for mobile device so that you can easily access your files. You can on a mobile phone you have stuff like instant uploads instead of uploading a picture you just took to Google or to Apple.
06:44
You can upload them to the Nextcloud and you know where your pictures are actually stored. And that's how Nextcloud was set up. But of course this now looks sounds everything great. You can set up your own Nextcloud your own file hosting and share your files and work with it.
07:03
But of course this also comes with a big drawback. And the drawback is if many people set up this Nextcloud this means that we create many small islands. As long as all the people you want to collaborate with are on the same Nextcloud instance it's still fine. Then you can share with the people there, work together with them on documents and so on.
07:22
But what happens if you want to collaborate now with someone who has his own Nextcloud set up somewhere else? Or you are at university A and have there your project and you collaborate with university B which has his own Nextcloud and you want to work on a project together and want to exchange files. And everybody is on his own island and it's a bit hard to collaborate with each other.
07:43
And that's where we invented the idea of federated cloud sharing. This allows you to create a bridge basically from one Nextcloud to another. And to do this every user on a Nextcloud server has something we call a federated cloud ID which basically looks quite similar to an email address.
08:02
It's basically user at and then the Nextcloud server where the user is located. And with this federated cloud ID you can put a name into the shared dialogue as easy as a name from a local person. And the share will send a REST request to the other server and tell the other server, hey on this server A there is someone who wants to share a file with you, do you want to accept it or not?
08:23
And if the user on server B decides to accept this file we create a WebDAF mount and mount the file from server A to server B. So that's completely transparent for the user. The user doesn't even really know if the file comes from a local user or from an external user. Also this WebDAF mount later gets then synced with your desktop client, your mobile client will accept the file.
08:49
So like it would be a local file so it's going to be transparent for the user and it allows you to create these bridges from one Nextcloud to another. I think that's a really important concept in order to keep the freedom to self-host, to run your
09:02
own service, to know where data are but still have the possibility to collaborate with the other peoples around you. And Nextcloud, as I said, we started out with the files. This was always on the core of Nextcloud but Nextcloud is not just the files for files. Nextcloud is these days a huge platform for a lot of apps.
09:24
At the moment we have more than 200 apps in the Nextcloud app store and you can not only share your files there but you can do a lot in Nextcloud more. For example we have a calendar app where people can have their calendars, also share their calendars with their family members, with their friends, send appointments to someone else and so on.
09:43
We have a contacts app where people can manage their address books. We have with Collabora online and only office, we have two office solutions where people can really in the browser edit their documents like they are used to from, for example, Google Docs. So if you uploaded your office document you don't have to download in order to work on it but you can do it directly in the browser.
10:07
We have Nextcloud Talk which is a communication platform where you can do chat with other people and have also video and audio calls. And of course all this is also stuff which you not only want to
10:22
do on your instance but you also want to do federated between different Nextcloud instances. So that's also a point where we continue to work on, as I tried to explain, this federated sharing at the beginning also started out in the files area where we allowed people to collaborate on files across different Nextcloud servers.
10:44
But with this open cloud mesh initiative, which I mentioned quickly earlier, which is an initiative across all universities across Europe basically, we all felt that there is a need for decentralized cloud storage and still a way for the universe to collaborate with each other.
11:01
So with this standard which we use at the moment for file sharing, we will in the future also be able to do federated calendar sharing, federated address books and federated calls and chat. And that's actually something we're working on at the moment. So I expect that if I'm allowed to be here one year late next year in
11:21
the next FOSDEM, I probably can show you federated calendar and address book sharing how this works. And so that's all about giving people the tools in the hand to stay in control over their data and communicate with each other and still be able to collaborate without losing control over their data.
11:47
And then there is one really new feature in Nextcloud, which was just announced with Nextcloud 15 about one month ago, and that's Nextcloud Social. I don't know, does anybody already heard about Nextcloud Social?
12:02
OK, a few people. Nextcloud Social is based on ActivityPub. Some of you might know from Mustardone and PixelFET and similar solutions. And this is completely Mustardone combatable, so you can, every Nextcloud user with Nextcloud 15 is basically if he enables the app also to participate in this huge, huge Fediverse with federated social networks, can also
12:26
send up status messages, can connect to other people on some Mustardone server, can connect, they can connect back. So you can also have the social interaction across servers with Nextcloud. And as I said, it's based on ActivityPub, so it's compatible with Mustardone, Pleroma, Friendycar and PixelFET.
12:47
We also plan in the future to implement Mustardone client API so that you can use all the Mustardone clients directly to connect to your Nextcloud and use also on your mobile device this social feature.
13:01
And some of you might now ask, yeah, why should we do Nextcloud Social or why do we try to push a federated network into a social network, into a file sync and share solution? I think that's, if you look at a broader picture, I think files are always somehow, especially in the business environment,
13:23
but also in education, files are at the heart of your interaction because you have your documents there, your presentations whatsoever. But people don't only want to store their data there and then sync it to a device, but they really want to work with the data. They really want to collaborate. For example, I want to work with my colleague on a document and then I can open Nextcloud Talk and chat with people while adding this document.
13:44
Or I can call them quickly and we can have directly on the one side our document, on the other side we have the chat, the call, the video call and discuss the project. And I think in the same sense, people are also used to use social networks this way. Everybody who worked at a bigger company knows that every big company these days has some kind of internal social network to use within a company.
14:10
And it would be also possible with Nextcloud Social. So also the admin can, for example, decide that if I run Nextcloud in my company, I only use this as an internal social network to let my employees communicate over this network and exchange data, exchange ideas, comment on stuff.
14:26
Directly attach files to it so that it's all in one nicely integrated way, everything together. Or of course you say you keep the next network open and also connect to other people or you can have a mixture of both.
14:44
For example, you can say, okay, most employees will use it as an internal communication tool, but the marketing department can also connect to people outside and push their messages out there. So I think for a rich collaboration platform in 2019 and in the future, it's important to mail more than no files.
15:03
And if you look at a typical company set up, this includes these days also real-time communication, social networking. So I think this fits all nicely together. And it's really sad that you can't see my slides because I had the nice screenshots so that you could have seen how this is really nicely integrated and work together.
15:21
Of course, it's a bit, yeah, not so easy if I just can talk about it, but if you want to see more of this, feel free to come over to our booth after the talk in the K building. There we have demo PCs where you can also try it out, have a look at it. And yeah, that's already almost the end of my talk.
15:43
As a summary, Nextcloud is 100% free software and open source. There is no hidden components. It's on its heart a file sync and share solution, but it becomes more and more a platform for a rich app ecosystem.
16:02
And really, the federation is a really core part of it because we believe in order to allow people to get back in control of the data, we still need to give them ways to connect with other people. And yeah, so if you want to join us, of course, Nextcloud is a huge community effort. At nextcloud.com slash contribute, you can find many ways to get engaged, to join the community, to help us, or you, as I said before, just
16:28
come after the talk down to our booth and chat with us, have a look at Nextcloud, how these new features work, how they are integrated nicely. Yeah, that's the end of my talk, so I'm happy to take questions.
16:51
Thank you. I do have one question. Do you hire? Yeah, we are also... I'm sorry, I'm such a huge fan. No, we are a growing company actually behind Nextcloud and we're always looking for talented people in all areas.
17:04
So if you think you're also not only on a community basis, but also as an employee, you want to get involved and just reach out to us. Okay, there are a few questions, so again, please stay seated until the end of the questions.
17:21
Please raise your hand. Sorry? Someone asks for... No problem. You are enlightened now.
17:43
Hi, thank you for your talk. You started off the talk talking about data ownership and a user choosing their own instance of Nextcloud to use, which I think was very important elements. Recently I found out actually, or maybe I missed something, that it's quite difficult to move a user from one Nextcloud to the other instance.
18:04
Did I miss anything or are there plans to improve that process? Yeah, you are right. At the moment, if you want to move from one instance to another, of course you can take the sync client, download all the files, upload them again. But it could be way more convenient and actually we are also looking into this, especially
18:21
this area, to improve user migration, to allow easier migration user from server A to server B. So this is something which might most likely improve in the future because I completely agree that this is a missing gap. Thank you. You mentioned your app store earlier. Do you do anything to manage the possibility of malicious apps being contributed or limit their impact?
18:46
Yeah, we have some measurements in place actually. So if someone uploads an app for the first time, he gets a certificate which is used to sign the app. So this way we make sure that no one else can upload an update of the app, but only the person who did the initial release.
19:06
So we cover this point that nobody can hijack somehow the account and upload a malicious version of the app. We also have checks when the app gets uploaded that it only uses public APIs and no internal APIs.
19:21
So there are some checks in place and then also apps which are additionally reviewed by us are labeled as official so we know they are more reviewed and more metered. So we try to do some stuff here to at least lower the risk.
19:40
Yes, great work. I was using own cloud before Nextcloud and I'm using Nextcloud now, super awesome. You mentioned that the federated file sharing is done via web.dev right now and you mentioned that calendars are coming. Is that going to reuse the existing like CalDAV protocols etc. and the chat things are they reusing or are they inventing new protocols?
20:11
That's a good question. Actually the chat component was something we planned for quite some time and also there was a lot of discussion before we actually implemented because as I said we always try to reuse existing standards out there.
20:25
Before we started developing we looked into XMPP for example, we looked also into matrix, we also was in contact with the matrix developers for example. But for us besides using the standards it's also super important to keep it easy.
20:40
We wanted someone can download this Nextcloud tarball, extract it to a web root and it runs. And that's the challenging thing if you do it with XMPP you need to have an XMPP server somewhere set up tweaking your DNS settings and stuff like this. Also the matrix guy told us implementing client is super easy but don't try to implement server.
21:01
So at the end we decided okay we do our own implementation because we just want to get this moving forward. But now we also explore ideas if we can create some bridges to the existing networks and maybe interconnect them. So that's the current state. Okay time's up so thank you for your talk.