Syncthing is everything I used to love about computers

That's true, but I want to point out a different dynamic, which is very important as well:

Projects can survive with multiple commercial contributors all active in it at once, and remain useful and not locked down due to a combination of copyleft licensing and companies being willing to share work if it benefits them. The Linux kernel is a prime example of this.

> Evolution of GNOME is a great example of this. There are now many flavors of GNOME all catering to different workflows, and users don't have to compromise their preferred way of doing things to chase how GNOME is evolving.

Zooming out, any user of an OS which uses X for its GUI can choose from a huge number of different window managers without someone coming along and deleting the ones "nobody uses" in the name of "streamlining the offering" or whatever "marketing synergy" or "confluent paradigm" is in vogue this month.

Open source has completely and consistently failed in the consumer market, and its adoption in the enterprise market has been mixed. In those markets users are either not knowledgeable enough or too busy to do the things open source asks of them.

Syncthing is cherry picked as an example in the original article because it's very atypical for open source. For open source it has a superb degree of polish and is quite easy to use.

Still I wonder how it would fare in a professional environment. How do I invite someone to syncthing the way I can with dropbox? How do I integrate it with my corporate management or IAM solution? How do I...? I assume there would be a long tail of weaknesses.

I also wonder what happens if syncthing gets abandoned or needs to undergo some major redesign to cope with some significant change to UI technology, OSes, or platforms. Who will do that?

Don't get me wrong. I like that syncthing exists and even that it lacks those features, but I also realize that it does not address the whole market and probably never will.

Open source as it stands has some fairly significant limits.

BTW the pathology described in this article is also seen in open source projects vying for mindshare, adoption, contributors, sponsorship, etc. It's not specific to commercial software. I do agree that it's more prevalent in commercial software because companies need to find a steady source of revenue, but it's gotten worse in recent years because nobody pays for the most basic core features of software that they want anymore. People only pay for fluff, or pay if they're wrangled into a closed ecosystem and then brought to the point of payment via some kind of dark pattern. You get what you pay for, and people no longer pay for just good software.

Open source, on the other hand, is generally adapted to the needs of whoever wants to do some unpaid work on it. This is why open source text editors are great. The users are the developers. This is also why open source applications (graphics, office, etc) are so horrible. Most developers don't use that stuff, or don't use it enough to put in some free work fixing GIMP. Desktop OS's are somewhere in the middle. Developers use them, but the things that would make an open source OS easy for the common user aren't fixed. As a result, they are generally only used by those who get enjoyment out of fixing their desktop, sort of like a classic car enthusiast who loves to spend a Sunday afternoon in the garage with a wrench.

Though there is no easy answer when it comes to this. How does a manufacturer support software reliably for 10+ years? Meanwhile we have three old machines here with all electromechanical controls. I will still be able to buy relays for them in 50 years. I'll be dead by then.

Otherwise known as Pilgrim's law:

"In the long run, the utility of all non-Free software approaches zero. All non-Free software is a dead end."

I have been switching systems three times, ran it on Android. Never had a hiccup.

Will probably contribute some money to the project tomorrow.

This is exactly the goal of Snowdrift.coop. (Disclaimer: I am a volunteer contributor and "replacement cofounder").

Unfortunately, not many people currently do donate. We posit that there's order(s) of magnitude more people who are willing to donate, but not willing to be the "sucker" who donates while others free-ride. (The game theory term for what they're after is mutual assurance). Fundamentally it's a coordination problem. To solve it, we need a mechanism that allows those folks to say, "I'm willing to do my bit, but only if others do theirs."

Snowdrift.coop is a crowdfunding platform (in development) that aims to provide such a mechanism. We call it crowdmatching. To support a project, patrons pledge to give a monthly donation of $1 per 1000 patrons of that same project. By pledging to match others, you invite them to join you, so we can reach that world of great sustainable software. And if they don't, you're left with a tiny bill, so it's safe to pledge to all the projects you'd like to support, without worrying that your lone $10/month is going to a project where it won't really move the needle.

There are two "safety measures" that are not part of crowdmatching, but I have to mention (opinions tend to be split on whether they are too obvious to be worth mentioning or too important not to say up front):

- You can set a monthly limit so you're not on the hook for more than you can afford.

- At low levels, donations are sometimes delayed and pooled (charged in arrears) to minimize processing fees.

I'll stop here to keep this a reasonable length, but will check back later and follow-up with replies. If you don't want to wait, I'd suggest reading down the list at https://wiki.snowdrift.coop until you get as far down the rabbit hole you want to go. Finally, we can use help getting all the way launched, especially if you're experienced with css or haskell (or, on the off chance, are a layer interested in doing pro bono work and/or serving on our board).

I no longer trust syncthing until this gets resolved, unfortunately.

I'm a Dropbox user since 2009 who recently switched to iCloud Drive. I miss the old Dropbox that just worked and stayed out of the way. Once Dropbox rebranded (2017?) I knew it was the beginning of the end. I cancelled my subscription a couple of years ago and just kept it around for syncing preferences, which I ditched a couple of months ago.

iCloud Drive works well enough, but it doesn't indicate whether files are synced (with a checkmark like Dropbox used to do). I typically avoid Apple software because in trying to simplify it they end up making it vastly overcomplicated.

I've heard good things about NextCloud but didn't want to self-host. I've tried SpiderOak and Google Drive before and both were just too slow (and Google Drive was very flakey).

We've changed the title above to that, which is a sentence from the article which more accurately represents what it's about.

CalDAV should have you covered there. While the need for a server may be a bit inconvenient, I doubt that usability would be on par with it when you just copy the files instead (think of alerts, sharing calendars with others, etc). Also, there is no iOS Syncthing client when your phone probably is the most important device to have your calendars on.

I make exceptions for a very small number of games, Minecraft is one. Even then though I usually avoid closed stuff unless I know the game well.

I totally disagree that closed source works with OSes, I couldn’t imagine living with OS X or Windows. Sometimes it feels like the people who build those OSes use a special version that isn’t distributed publicly, how else could they leave so much broken?

I would agree it's not ideal, or maybe even not desirable, but not viable is a very strong claim when the reality is that 99+% of end-users are using almost exclusively close source proprietary applications and tools.

I was bitten by this so many times, because the path of least resistance is just to install unison from the repo of whatever OS you are using, but if you want to sync between different OSs, may God have mercy on your soul. Sometimes, it works. Sometimes, it explodes.

I switched to Syncthing. Your points here are valid, but so far, have not been a problem in the real world.

It really is, depending on your constraints. It's one of those charming problems that starts at "Why don't you just ___?" and quickly devolves to "Okay, so we can probably avoid creating an inconsistent state here so long as edgecase0, edgecase1, and edgecase38 don't occur at the same time."

What's this feature called in Unison's own terms? I'm also a regular Unison user, but I'm not familiar with this idea and it's not jumping out from a quick browse through the manual. Would like to know more in case I'm missing something good.

I don't see why there couldn't be an iOS or Android version. It could work the same way Google Drive and Dropbox work. I also use Qfile on my iPad with my QNAP NAS and it works just fine.

All of these are synced through Dropbox, and I have the confidence that 1) my files are backed up on a server that I don't own 2) the software will be updated and continue to work across all the disparate machines I currently own and will own in the future.

I don't doubt that Syncthing will work on Linux super-well, but Windows, Android, and IOS can be picky and not play well with open source. It scares me off a bit from using it.

I would not mind syncthing to be limited to ish permissions.

I guess we will have to wait for a decent Linux on phones.

Short history:

There was 1 attempt to do it which ended with nothing

https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/issues/109

https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/pull/4331

Then there was a follow-up PR (which I was downright giddy to discover): https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/pull/6214

That PR was just closed yesterday in favor of https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/pull/6727 which is where the current flame of hope burns.

Also for two wat, check out cryptomator

I found trying to manage anything like restricted access to be impossible from a practical standpoint.

Debugging what's going on when it doesn't want to sync is not fun. The logs are full of info that seems irrelevant and just finding the config file on Windows is a new adventure on each machine. Not sure why they can't at least show the path in the web UI somewhere.

I would have gone with Dropbox, but it's blocked in the country most of us work in. Syncthing mostly gets the job done, but I'd probably pay for Dropbox if I could eliminate the frequent inexplicable 15-30 minute delays from Syncthing. In it's defense, though, the network quality it has to work with is pretty terrible.

This is not a terminal vs GUI problem. He's discussing a 1 step process (terminal) vs 10-15 step process (GUI). If Dropbox allowed you to install in 1 single step, I'm sure the author wouldn't be as vocal.

As is explained in the link you provided.