Percloud in 10_slides

The percloud in 10 slides
A Free Software, portable, personal alternative to
centralized email, social networking and other
Web services
by
Marco Fioretti
http://mfioretti.com
http://stop.zona-m.net
Marco Fioretti (marco@digifreedom.net) September 20, 2013

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A percloud (“PERsonal/PERmanent, peer-2-peer Cloud”) is ONE bundle
of Free Software, running on whatever server its owner choses, that:
provides personal email, blogging, social networking and
bookmarking, online storage and other services, all accessible from
any desktop or mobile browser, to its owner
is portable from one server to another, without loss of data
is properly packaged and integrated, thuss providing ONE, easy to use
interface to all its services
What is a percloud, and how does it work?

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The percloud reuses as much already existing Free Software as possible. This makes it both much easier to
maintain, and completely compatible with today's Internet
a percloud consists of four main components (IMPORTANT: this is just a temporary description of the main concepts,
to be validated during phase 1 of the project!!)
Percloud architecture
Backend
(also accessible via ssh)
Services panel
(access to
personal calendar,
address book,
online file manager,
bookmarks...)
Control panel
for all the actual
percloud
configuration:
email and
website settings,
backup management,
software updates...
Parts accessible by any Web browser
Home
(access to
personal calendar,
address book,
bookmarks...)
Services panel
(access to
personal calendar,
address book,
bookmarks, backups
download...)
Home and services panel, both
accessible with one common
password, are the only parts that
the owner/end user of a percloud
must/needs to use personally
The Control panel has a separate
password.
Access to the control panel can be delegated to
trusted third parties, from relatives to hosting
companies.
This makes it possible to use a percloud even for
people who have a Gmail or Facebook account today,
but no software/website management skills.
Parents can set up percloud for their children and
give them the control password when they grow up.
Single consultants, small hosting companies, NGOs
can offer percloud management services without
locking their customers in...
Etc...

4
(this is only a temporary description: its validation and feasibility, including the actual choice of every
single component, is the goal of phase 1!)
barebone Gnu/Linux distribution: only kernel, system libraries, and those 3rd party Free Software Packages
that are actually needed to run the percloud services
The parts in the grey area are dynamic Web pages that should be designed from scratch (php/ajax?)
All pieces would be preconfigured to work with each other!
Being Free Software, everything could be extended and/or customized at will, without paying royalties or similar
restrictions
Percloud Backend
Linux Kernel + basic components and libraries
Email subsystem
(postfix, dovecot,
federated antispam
filter,..)
Web server
subsystem
(httpd server, php...)
Database subsystem
(MySql...)
End user applications/frontends
(WordPress, OwnCloud, SemanticScuttle, Mailpile,..)
Home, Services panel, Control panel

5
Percloud Home: ONE web page, showing as ONE stream...
Standard RSS feeds from any
Website the user wants to
follow
Posts by the percloud
owner and the comments
they got, updates and
mentions from other
percloud users
External notifications from
traditional social networks
Percloud home
mockup
(this is a collage of a
WordPress blog home
page, and other web
pages: in a percloud
home, they would all be
merged in one common
visual layout/theme

6
Percloud Services Panel
...with already existing support for
embedding of external webmail or
other Web-based applications!
OwnCloud is the most likely candidate for this part
of the percloud:
Already existing Free Software that integrates
personal online picture gallery, shareable calendar,
Dropbox-like desktop folder synchronization...

7
Percloud Control Panel
Webmin is the most likely candidate
for this part of the percloud:
Already existing Free Software that
provides one Web interface...
to configure and manage many
independent servers, each through its
own Webmin module/sub-window
The Webmin version included in the
percloud would be a simplified one,
containing only the modules/settings/
functions actually needed to control the
percloud

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Percloud feature #1: Integration
A percloud is one portable bundle of mostly preexisting, independent Free Software packages...
...all integrated and preconfigured for ONE, and one only use case: personal email, blogging, social networking
this makes all those packages immensely easier to use than they are today, by integrating as much as possible
their many independent interfaces:
end users must only install or update ONE package
they only see ONE home, ONE service panel, ONE control panel for all services
as many settings as possible are already hidden and/or hardwired in the package, greatly reducing the amount of skills
and work required by the end user (or his delegated administrator!)
But at the same time, since the percloud is only made with Free Software:
there are no backdoors
everything remains open to customization by whoever needs it, without royalties and similar restrictions

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Percloud feature #2: Federation
The main, real services of current social networks are:
Constant, seamless notification of what your online contacts are doing
Shared “analysis” of certain data, e.g. tracking spammers
Q: Those services work only because the data of all their users are available, for
centralized analysis and monitoring, on the same (set of) servers. How can independent
perclouds, scattered all over the Internet do the same?
A: through federation, that is talking to each other through already existing open
standards conceived just for this purpose, like http://pump.io; and/or preconfigured
connections to already existing open networks for distributed detection of comment or
email spam, like http://razor.sourceforge.net/
Studying how to add and integrate federation to the several components of
a percloud is one of the main parts of Phase 1

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What next?
Read more about the percloud at http://per-cloud.com
Read why Mailpile, Diaspora, Freedombox etc... are not enough at
http://stop.zona-m.net/?p=4308
Follow percloud news on Twitter by @mfioretti_en
Fund Phase 1 of the percloud: http://igg.me/at/personalcloudfreesw/x/4406600
Email marco@digifreedom.net for further information

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