General Project Discussion

[Kickball]

We need to document this project and ensure that information is available to contributors.

[Kickball]

@nodiscc Labels Wiki Page Created.

What do you think? Does anything need changing?

[nodiscc]

ensure that information is available to contributors

I would not be to strict regarding project organization, as long as we take time to review contributions and notify the author if there's something wrong it should be fine. Yep labels are a good way to communicate between maintainers, whether a patch has been reviewed, needs work or is ready to merge, etc. All information required to submit a patch should live in the Contributing section. It doesn't replace communicating with contributors.

By the way @Kickball you've been doing a great work, thanks for adding me as a collaborator! 1300 stars in a week, second on https://github.com/trending, 48 contributors... Just woah. I'm glad this list useful to many people. Thank you everyone for your contributions too.

About curating the list, I'd prefer having an exhaustive list of what solutions exist, and let users do their own choices. I know other "awesome" lists have a more strict policy (https://github.com/n1trux/awesome-sysadmin, https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome... ) regarding software quality. Just my 2 cents.

I think the next step is deciding what is the policy regarding non-free/closed source/proprietary software. Non-free software that's been added so far looks decent quality and/or is popular, but it bothers me that this list could become an advertisement platform for commercial products.

I wish awesome-selfhosted would promote collaboration between projects, letting users build their own self-hosted environments, under their own control, getting more independence from proprietary/locked-in platforms (it's somehow ironical that we're hosted on Github, even though the list can be accessed using standard tools such as git, a web browser and a text editor) and SaaS providers. I realize everyone has to make a living and building proprietary sw is one way to do it. This is not about ethics but about the purpose of this list, and keeping it free from commercial interests.

So we could keep adding non-free solutions (and merge #112) until their number becomes a problem, or decide now to move them to a separate file (non-free.md) and link to it from the main page.

@Kickball what do you think? Input from other people is welcome too

Should we rename this issue to General project discussion?

[Kickball]

@nodiscc firstly I'm glad to have you on the team, thank you for your work, and I'm quite proud of how far the repo has gone!

As for paid solutions: I completely agree with you about not having the paid solutions in the same file to keep commercial interests separate.

I don't think we need to have heavily enforced standards for software quality, however we should only accept pull requests for projects which have all of the relevant information (license, primary programming language, etc).

[joubertredrat]

@Kickball @nodiscc I think that is good idea to add CONTRIBUTING.md with rules to contribute with this repo, what do you think?

[nodiscc]

@joubertredrat https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted#contributing I'd prefer keeping in the same file/page.

[nodiscc]

We've hit 103 contributors on README.md. Thank you everyone.

[Kickball]

I'd like to reinvestigate the option of having a communication system for this repo, as mentioned in #329.

What are people's thoughts on having this communication system?

I'll try to keep this comment up to date with a list of solutions we are considering:

• Glitter
• IRC (Possibly on Freenode)

[nodiscc]

We already have an (asynchronous) discussion platform on https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted, but if you really want real-time discussion, I suggest using a standardized/federated network (XMPP conference room or IRC channel?)

Are there already active channels focused on self-hosting/personal server setups?

Else, a channel on freenode sounds fine.

[Kickball]

Maybe we can push for a channel on Freenode for both our use and /r/selfhosted use.

[Kickball]

Currently the enhancement and bug labels don't fit perfectly with our project. I'm considering renaming them to be addition and fix.

What do you think about these changes?

[nodiscc]

Feel free to change the labels anytime

[Kickball]

I've changed the enhancement label to now be addition and the bug label to now be fix.

I've also updated the issue page on the wiki.

@AndyR207 @nodiscc

[nodiscc]

Ok.

4500 stars!

[nodiscc]

Do we really need to bother contributors with proper capitalization in Source Code, etc.? It slows down the process, and a lot of previous entries do not have proper capitalization. I'm in favor of accepting Pull Requests as is, and fixing these "problem" in batches. Idem for full stops. As long as the PRs have the necessary information (license, language/platform, proper links, self-explanatory description) I think this is fine. Correct syntax can be ensured using a YAML backend and automated tests, see below.

[mro]

unasked advice from outsider: Personally, I would use yaml for the raw project data plus a single file, ruby 1.8.7-2.2+, zero dependency, 20 line script to merge it into Readme.md. https://github.com/edumbill/doap may be overkill. Or may be produced parallel to Readme.md

[nodiscc]

@mro Actually it might be required to move to a build system using YAML or JSON storage in the future, if we want to enable complex filtering, categorizing software by tags, etc. For now I think a markdown file is good enough, and has the advantage of being portable (text file, zero dependencies).

[nodiscc]

Hi, I wanted to point out that the generator at https://github.com/bevry/staticsitegenerators-website does almost everything we need to render a YAML-formatted list. It renders to https://staticsitegenerators.net/. The list data is here - we have a few more fields (category, demo url, ...) but it could likely be adapted? I know nothing about ruby coffeescript though.

A YAML based list keeps the list human-readable while allowing generation of more complex pages with filtering/sorting capabilities. Tests can be written to ensure that the syntax conforms to CONTRIBUTING.

• Port the list to YAML
• Improve https://github.com/bevry/staticsitegenerators-website
  • Output to Markdown (README.md)
  • Output to HTML (already works)
  • Output to mediawiki format (possibly upload page, replace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_free_software_web_applications)

7000 stars 167 contributors 512 forks :)

[Kickball]

@n8225 could you please make an account on our chat system? We'd love to chat with you.

[Kickball]

Any new discussions on the project will be moved to our chat.

Edit: this is not the case any more.

[mro]

@nodiscc that's a tricky one, because the main purpose of this list being a registry in nature is to be found. When searching software and tooling. So, just as the missionary has to go to the pagans, github etc. are the places to be. But as the missionary shouldn't become a pagan, github etc. shouldn't be home.

I would recommend that you being the current project steward

• set up a @gogs (or @go-gitea if you prefer more frequent updates) on your domain and put this repository there,
• configure a post-receive hook that forwards every push to github+gitlab+…
• explain where the primary source is and that all others are mirrors (e.g. like https://github.com/mro/ShaarliOS does),
• ideally keep accepting pull requests from any mirror, merge and push them.

That's the idea of https://indieweb.org/POSSE and is what I'm very confident with with my personal, 1-contributor activities.

Issues may be wherever most convenient, but be explicit about where they are. (Mention in the README and configure @gogs to redirect properly, so @gogs remains the canonical source of information).

The domain may move over time, ideally the old one(s) pointing to the current one and definitively the silos always pointing to the current one.

Hope this helps,
@mro

P.S.: The hook https://code.mro.name/mro/ShaarliOS/settings/hooks/git/post-receive is just

#!/bin/sh
# the user running gogs needs a ~/.ssh key connected to the repo owners below
 
git push --mirror git@github.com:mro/ShaarliOS.git
git push --mirror git@gitlab.com:mro/ShaarliOS.git

[n8225]

I do agree that we should look into hosting changes, but I'm not the biggest fan of the main repo being selfhosted. I know how that may sound.... I think an organization possible on gitlab would be a better move for the repo leaving a mirror on GitHub. (another approach to POSSE, PESOS is already being done
If I could find the time and motivation to finish https://github.com/n8225/Awesome-Selfhosted-Gen it would make it easier to add to the list and given enough tests could remove some of the manual housekeeping requirements

[nodiscc]

Thanks everyone for your valuable input. Let's take our time thinking this through, some good options have already been mentioned.

A self-hosted domain for the project could also have an additional, alternative TLD, resolvable by the OpenNIC project [1]

I'll try to draft/setup something when I get some time.

[mro]

maybe the list may contain not only technical aids, but also motivational, and background essays, like e.g. the "a domain of one's own" chapter of "Tending the Digital Commons: A Small Ethics toward the Future" by Alan Jacobs, available e.g. in a internet archive near you. IMO self-hosting is much more an issue of attitude rather than of languages and runtimes.

[nodiscc]

maybe the list may contain not only technical aids, but also motivational, and background essays

If we move to a self-hosted platform we could add related services for this, eg. a public RSS aggregator/planet, that feeds from multiple other, self-hosted blogs/projects. We could aggregate the whole blog or only some articles with the selfhosting tag or similar.

It is good because it only needs good quality sources/writers (eg. you could post the Alan Jacobs link on your blog/shaarli/gitlab pages..., and have it display there. Or someone could write a technical article, with appropriate tags...), and there is minimal maintenance (only curation of sources, and setup filtering of irrelevant posts). People can get in touch directly with each other to improve the articles, etc.

There was an attempt at an extensive resource/wiki about self-hosting but there is almost no content, probably because it needs a lot of editors to maintain. Whereas an aggregated/federated system doesn't have this problem, it just requires a selection of good sources.

[nodiscc]

Any news about transferring the repo? @Kickball

[twentythreew]

@nodiscc I just created https://lucidindex.com, which covers most of the features that have been discussed here. The biggest missing item would be reviews, which I'd like to add at some point in the future.

I also link back to this list on each app that is listed in this list. Some of them came from the sysadmin list as well.

Let me know what you think. I'm happy to receive any feedback or suggestions for improvement. I want this to be as useful as possible.

Edit: The biggest difference between this list and the site is that free and non-free items are in the same list...but there aren't many non-free items so it shouldn't be a problem

[courtg9000]

@twentythreew I really like what you have done here. You should take great credit from this.
Two things I think this site could do with.

1. A Forum. Not essential but could be useful.
2. A page of useful links for self hosters. Websites, forums, social media etc.

[nodiscc]

@twentythreew Congrats for this very nice looking website. I like the simple and clean design, and individual pages with screenshots are also very good. I hope in time you will be able to share some of your improvements with the community (eg. extended tagging, storage format improvements, tooling...).

We could link this from https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted#external-links

[twentythreew]

@courtg9000 Thank you :) I thought about adding a forum, but I wasn't sure if it was necessary because of the subreddit r/selfhosted

Do you think it would be used?

The other issue is moderation. I don't know if I'd have the time to be a good moderator, but if the community has enough interest in another forum, I'm sure I can work something out.

The links page, I can definitely do asap!

[twentythreew]

@nodiscc Thank you! I can share the data asap if you think it would be helpful. Perhaps make the daily feed available where people can grab the json output I create when I parse the list? The format I used is kind of ugly and will likely evolve over time, but it works, and it's updated daily...

A link would be awesome :) I'll probably add the useful links page @courtg9000 mentioned sometime this evening as well

[nogweii]

Ah, the repo has been moved/transferred! We're now located at https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted/

EDIT: I don't know who is part of the Github organization, but I'd like to join it to help out in an "official" way that Github understands. 😄

[nodiscc]

Ah, the repo has been moved/transferred! We're now located at https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted/

Yes, however https://github.com/Kickball/awesome-selfhosted now redirects to https://github.com/Kickball/awesome-selfhosted-backup... Not sure this is a good thing, since all links out there still point to the original repo (notably the first Google result for selfhosted...). @Kickball can you fix this?

I don't know who is part of the Github organization, but I'd like to join it to help out in an "official" way that Github understands.

Definitely, you've been a great help, adding you right now. At the moment the org is just me and @Kickball

[nodiscc]

Yes, however https://github.com/Kickball/awesome-selfhosted now redirects to https://github.com/Kickball/awesome-selfhosted-backup...

I mailed him:

Somehow the old repo does not redirect to the organization repo. Can you update the description at https://github.com/Kickball/awesome-selfhosted-backup to something like

PROJECT MOVED - https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted

Or find a way to do a proper redirect?

[Kickball]

I've deleted the backup repo I forked and it now looks to redirect to the organisational repo.

Let me know if that isn't the case.

[SuperSandro2000]

Works for me and I think I visited the old redirect once.

[theowenyoung]

Hi, @nodiscc :

I'm Owen, a big fan of awesome-selfhosted. After discovering this awesome list, I read all kinds of interesting items in the entire list. After that, I wanted to see what updates were made to this list every once in a while, and had to go through Github's commit history to see what was updated for each commit. To be honest, it was quite a poor reading experience.

So for this need, I created Track Awesome List in my spare time, and created a profile for awesome-selfhosted, https://www.trackawesomelist.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted . With this link, we can read the latest updates of awesome-selfhosted by day/week, free, daily updated. I wonder if anyone else has this need to see the latest updates, and if so, whether to add this link somewhere in the readme to tell others they can see the updates via this link?

I also created a badge for awesome-selfhosted, which can also be linked to the timeline of awesome-selfhosted.

[![Track Awesome List](https://www.trackawesomelist.com/badge.svg)](https://www.trackawesomelist.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted/)

Let me know what you think. I'm happy to receive any feedback or suggestions for improvement. I want this to be as useful as possible.

If you don’t think it’s necessary, that’s okay. I really appreciate you maintaining such an awesome list. I like this list.

[ridhamdave]

I have been following this repo regularly, and have experimented with around 80+ self hosted websites in my home lab, and would like to contribute more to the community.
What would be a recommended way to help the team to approve more PRs and maintain the repo?

[nodiscc]

Hi @ridhamdave

To help with faster approval of Pull Requests, check the reviewers wanted tag, read PRs you have an interest in (Files changed tab) and submit your review/approval/comments using the Review Changes button.

To be helpful, reviewers should ensure that the submission is conform to the contribution guidelines, ask the submitter to fix errors or missing information (if any), and if possible provide additional information, for example:

    Have you used it? For how long?
    Is this in a personal or professional setup?
    How many devices/users/services/... do you manage with it?
    Biggest pros/cons compared to other solutions?
    Any other comments about your use case, things you've found excellent, limitations you've encountered... ?

The more detailed/high quality/unbiased reviews, the better! I will approve and merge PRs that have one or several reviews faster.

Related #2981

The main maintenance task is removal of unmaintained projects and dead links (#3558). Feel free to send PRs to remove any of the unmaintained projects (example #3567). You may @-mention the project maintainer in your Pull Request comments to check with them if the project is still maintained and/or in a working state. I will merge such curation PRs after some time if there is no counter-indication. Make sure that no PRs are already opened for the item you're trying to remove (curation tag).

Note that approved changes will stay pending for ~a week before merge, in case someone wants to provide additional reviews/information.

Thank you for offering your help, and thanks to all contributors who help keep this project going strong for 7+ years.

[nodiscc]

Moved to awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted-data#33.

Please check the release announcement for more details.