With every SaaS shutdown I wonder if desktop software will have a big comeback, because it's getting a bit ridiculous - you find a SaaS tool, use it daily, pay for it, store all your work there and one day they just shutdown. Middle finger to you. Sure, you can export your data, but what's the use without the tool? When you have a desktop application, you can use it as long as you want - even if the company goes out. Sure, you won't get support and future updates, but at least you can continue to use it until you find something new.
Sandstorm will make a big difference in this regard:
"Sandstorm is a radically easier way to run your own personal server. It lets you install and manage apps entirely through a web interface — it's as easy as installing apps on your phone."
> Humorously, that link 404s (because of the quote at the end).
D'oh!
> Later, on the same page: "Use Our Servers..."
Yes, that does sound silly when read out of context; while they do provide hosting for Sandstorm-aware applications, Sandstorm as a platform allows you to just as easily host your apps yourself (of course, not everyone is technically qualified to setup a VPS and all that jazz). Regardless of who you have hosting your apps (perhaps yourself), you could trivially export your data and move elsewhere - kind of like how if one of my company owned laptops is about to fail, I can always copy my stuff over to one of my own laptops and keep running - I don't have to purchase completely new software and try to finagle my data exports into the new programs. If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend watching the video from the IndieGoGo campaign:
I'm a big fan of Kenton Varda's work, but my problem with Sandstorm is I don't understand how it's conceptually different and better than, say, Docker.
* Provides a command line interface to manage containers (containers being, essentially, linux kernel namespaces, groups and a union file system, all brought together).
* Each app needs to provide its own auth.
* You need some orchestration in place to deploy and manage your apps.
* Ultimately, it requires _technical work_ to spin up applications.
Sandstorm:
* Provides a web interface for:
* Fetching/installing packaged apps.
* Exporting data, so you can trivially move hosts.
* Unified authentication: you log in once, and then you can access any app.
* Apps only take up server resources while you have a tab open.
* _Uses_ containers behind the scenes, but that's not the selling point.
A metaphor: you can think of Docker as being a bare bones OS, and Sandstorm as being that OS _plus_ a unified app store. As a non-technical software user, that app store makes the OS accessible to me - with a couple taps, I can have all sorts of new tools installed and ready to be used, all without ever considering memory models, network firewall rules, command line invocations, etc.
So, if you're a writing software and you need the flexibility of orchestrating containers, firewalls, auth, etc, then Docker is what you want. If instead, you just want to be able to edit documents, send emails, read your RSS feeds, etc, then you want to click a couple buttons and have your apps ready to go - you don't really care _how_ it's implemented, you just want your apps.
Great! After this discussion, it's clearer to me that Sandstorm is "user-friendly [Docker]/[containers for web-apps]".
I think I was misled when Kenton repeatedly pointed out how, with Sandstorm, disappearing SaaS wouldn't be a problem. This implied that there was a relatively an easy way to take an existing web-app and turn it into a Sandstorm App. I now realize how naive that impression was, as making a Sandstorm App actually requires adapting the webapp to Sandstorm, which requires development work and access to the source code.
Which, as someone who is perfectly able to rev up a virtual server and install some web-app, including configuring it to use some shared auth backend, isn't as groundbreaking as I hoped for.
Sandstorm is a great value proposition for the reasons you cite, just not the amazing unicorn I unrealistically expected.
> Which, as someone who is perfectly able to rev up a virtual server and install some web-app, including configuring it to use some shared auth backend, isn't as groundbreaking as I hoped for.
While you may be capable of doing that, you are part of a very small set of people. We aren't going to see a revolution where everyone starts using self-hosted applications unless everyone is in fact capable of doing so. And without a large userbase to attract developers, the apps you are running on your personal server will never rival SaaS competitors in quality or variety. That in turn means that even people who are happy with the difficulty of self-hosting today have a lot to gain...
Yeah, I had read that and came out unsatisfied. Back then I was hoping that Sandstorm was fundamentally different in a better way, but it turns out to be that it's "just" a different solution using the same kernel-provided facilities as Docker uses, in order to provide a more user-friendly container solution.
On second reading, that post does actually answer my original questions, I guess I was hoping for something different back then.
I'm not sure, I think I was hoping that the guy who gave us Cap'n Proto would come up with a novel and awesome approach tocontainerization. :)
But to come up with some differentiation aspects: was it using Linux containers or lower-level virtualization? (it's using containers). Did it provide a powerful new way to automatically containerize an app? (it's not automatic)
Yeah, the goal wasn't to create a novel and awesome approach to containerization, but rather a novel and awesome approach to web app hosting and deployment. Containerization is just a tool towards that end.
I feel like everyone fixates on the containerization aspect mostly because Docker is hot right now and containerization is all they do. It's hard to get people to understand that containerization is not the point of Sandstorm. Putting servers under the control of end users is the point.
I mean no disrespect, but purely from how you phrased this - I hear things said of this form a lot - this sounds more like your problem than Sandstorm's.
That's quite valid :) However considering Sandstorm was crowdfunding, and I was interested in their idea and so did a minimum of reasearch and followed all their posts, I'll retort that in this case, it's their problem.
As a counter-example, it was pretty clear to me what Cap'n Proto improved over ProtoBufs.
perhaps, but assuming Sandstorm is a commercial venture and desires to make money, it IS their problem to educate prospective customers on their value proposition. we know what docker does.
What we're seeing here, I think, is very analogous to the Office Suite Wars.
Back in the day, there were many desktop software makers who were viable businesses. Multiple spreadsheet companies (like Lotus, for instance), multiple Word processors and the like. Over time, Microsoft Acquired or drove out of business much of the competition by aggregating all of these functions into a coherent office suite.
This time around, companies like Github are "liberating" key functionality via acquisition. I think some of these things will end up like atom -- open source projects that play a key role in githubs core business (yes, I expect atom to replace the in-browser editor on github, so that's the assumption I'm working on here)... while others will be like the extra businesses that Github runs on the side.
I don't think this is bad, since Easel was acquired by github... I think it will live on.
But others, like the many small vibrant independent desktop software makers will die. And that's not great.
The difference is that you can still use that old version of Professional Write (.pw files ) under DosBox. However, if you invested a lot of your time/resources in a service like Multiply.com (or this one) you are screwed.
Unmaintained desktop applications also have their set of problems: typically a major OS upgrade will tend to kill some apps for good (I bought several > 300€ licenses and had that issue in the past, both on Windows and Mac OS X). Unless you pay for yearly maintenance (which will go away too if the company shuts down), you end up stuck as well.
Well - at least you could run some emulator in a VM if you want, technically I can still run some oldies in DosBox :-)
I came here to say this too. Basically your only hope is to understand the ephemeral nature of software, and place your long-term bets on standard formats with the understanding that no digital application and workflow will survive more than a decade. Even dealing with just data you have to be prepared to convert and modernize. Digital media is new, and its lossless nature has fooled people into thinking it's permanent, but without careful planning to refresh both physical media and formats, it's far more volatile than historical media such as books.
Desktop apps won't have a "comeback" for a lot of us. There have always been questions about the viability of these sorts of online services. So we did the smart thing, and never put our data and apps at risk to begin with. We have nothing to come back to, since we never left in the first place.
For reference sake, their previous post, dated Jan. 1, 2014, states that they (the team, presumably) were acquired by Github, and they had a vague promise that things would remain the same:
> What does this means to you, our users? Easel continues to run as it has. We’ll continue to provide support and all of our paid plans will continue to enjoy their current benefits. We’re excited to begin this new chapter and hope you’ll love what we have in store.
I've always seen these products as amazing technical achievements...but of limited market. For more programming/scripting-focused devs like me, such a product can never uproot the (perhaps crusty, but trusted) toolset and workflow we've invested in. For visually-focused designers, they get paid plenty do do beautiful designs that are then sliced from Photoshop...so they don't even need to bother with making exportable code. And then for all the others...product managers and etc....the need to prototype a site happens what...at most, once every two to three months...That is not a sustainable rate of use for a tool that inevitably has some bit of learning curve.
second edit: durr, OP was acquired by Github not Easel
Yes, I think a lot of developers/freelancers/startups desperately need an OS tool like this that they can plug into their larger codebase/CMS. I see it as the evolution of the WYSIWYG/rich-text editor.
I hadn't heard of them, but I just walked through their tutorial called "Improve Your Typography With a Few Simple Guidelines" and was really impressed. It looks like a fun tool. It's a shame to have found it at this point in its existence.
> It's the exception to the rule when they keep them running.
Not necessarily, acquisitions aren't all one kind of thing. The motive for the acquisition greatly impacts the outcome. If it's a technology/IP acquisition or a personnel acquisition, then yes, generally expect that the original company's products will vanish. Why? Because the products were never part of the recognized value of the purchase.
If it's a business process acquisition, then it's more likely the product(s) will remain. This depends more on the motives and details of the acquiring vs. the acquired companies. If the acquisition leaves the acquired as a wholly-owned subsidiary, then one can expect the products to remain.
"everything will stay the same" doesn't just mean "doens't close down." Look at Yahoo!'s attempts over the years to integrate products into their ecosystem by forcing users to needs a Yahoo! account for new sign-ups.
In case you didn't know, they got acquired by Github at the start of this year so "get bought by company that doesn't really care about your users" is probably missing.
We believe that iterating on design should be straightforward and free of repetitive work. We’re excited to be joining GitHub to continue to pursue that goal.
What does this means to you, our users? Easel continues to run as it has. We’ll continue to provide support and all of our paid plans will continue to enjoy their current benefits. We’re excited to begin this new chapter and hope you’ll love what we have in store. [1]
Weird. I checked them out yesterday, even thought about signing up. Good that I didn't go through the hassle.
Not sure it's OIJ material, since they at least apologized for deleting their users' data. Of course that's not as good as not-deleting it in the first place. This was posted in 2009 and is unfortunately still relevant: they chose to rip it down posthaste, with a specific amount of “warning time”... it also happened in an environment where this approach was considered legitimate and valid. This is the heart of what I’m trying to get to: they saw absolutely nothing wrong with this.
