Hacker News Reader

Comment by layer8 | Hacker News Reader

Most comments are about owning your data or running your own server. But what’s also important is decoupling the mechanism of distributing or syncing the data (for access from different locations/clients) from actually working with the data. Basically, this is the separation between file system and application.

The separation has two benefits: One can work with the data independently from internet access, and one can choose between different applications that understand the data format, including writing your own, without having to depend on a third party. Controlling what is shared is then also independent from the chosen application.

Lastly, native applications can have the benefit of improved usability by adhering to the platform conventions and having better integration into native features.

View on HN

Exactly. It's like KeePassXC. It's a local app but the syncing of your password file is on you. You can choose to sync it however you want. You can choose to use Dropbox/Google Drive/etc or choose not to sync at all. The benefit you have a choice and you have complete control of the data/file. Nobody can take that away from you.

Can you open your data without KeePassXC?

The database is an open format I think?

I don't know what qualifies as an open format, but there're enough open source implementations (including original KeePass) and format descriptions to work with this format in practice.

There is other software that can open it. You could even write you own with a library like this one: https://pypi.org/project/pykeepass/

I think the ideal case is having a web app in a self-hosting environment, but also having a robust API/client ecosystem.

For instance, I host TinyTinyRSS on my Sandstorm server, and if on a machine that isn't mine, I can just use the web interface to read for a bit. But I definitely have preferred client apps on both my phone and desktop OSes for devices which I use regularly.

Out of curiosity, which local client do you use on the desktop? I also have a TT-RSS server running on Sandstorm, but many of the client apps I’ve found require that you install a server-side plugin, which seems a bit more difficult there.

I use one somewhat unhelpfully just named "Tiny Tiny RSS Reader" by Stefan Prasse. He actually delisted it from the Windows Store, however, I have both the APPX files for sideloading it, and he did post the source online. I actually had an issue with it recently, and have been monkeying with the code, and sent a message asking if I can republish it with fixes, as it does not have a license at present.

If you want me to send you the Appx, hit me up at me (at) ocdtrekkie.com

Also, if there's a TTRSS client you really want to get working with the Sandstorm version, kick open an issue on the repo and let's see what we can do. (https://github.com/zenhack/ttrss-sandstorm/) Usually I've found the biggest challenge is many client apps don't support HTTP Basic Auth, which is what the Sandstorm API requires. If the server-side plugin will work in the Sandstorm environment and isn't detrimental to the package, maybe we can include it.

I have noticed a trend recently of high quality, free apps disappearing from app stores. I wonder if it is the changing app store/play store guidelines and changes are making it too difficult to keep up with the changing requirements to keep the apps in the store.

In this case I believe it's because the app was written principally for Windows Phone, which is dead, though I really like it on desktop Windows too. The author moved on to writing a PWA version instead.

There is a bit of a general runaround to maintaining app store presence, keeping versions up to date and stuff, if someone doesn't want to use an app anymore personally and also aren't making money on it, I definitely can't fault them for delisting it.

> There is a bit of a general runaround to maintaining app store presence, keeping > versions up to date and stuff, if someone doesn't want to use an app anymore > personally and also aren't making money on it, I definitely can't fault them for > delisting it.

I think you've hit the nail on the head, its like an extreme version of software rot.

> one can choose between different applications that understand the data format, including writing your own

Which is arguably "just" a much deeper form of "owning your data." One that I wholeheartedly agree with by the way.

By the way, I think what the author should have phrased it as is "local first" applications.

> But what’s also important is decoupling the mechanism of distributing or syncing the data (for access from different locations/clients) from actually working with the data. Basically, this is the separation between file system and application.

Is there any good FOSS middleware to handle this? CoreData (based on sqlite) can sync data to an iCloud CloudKit container[1]. Firebase can do this[2]. And Couchbase-lite-C can do it with JSON documents[3].

Couchbase is the only system I know of that does this transparently and is open source across the board. But for some reason no one seems to be using it.

[1] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/coredata

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firebase

[3] https://github.com/couchbase/couchbase-lite-C

This decoupling is important, true. But not for all applications. Especially applications you'll open at multiple machines at the same time (like password managers), syncing could become an issue, or at least tedious, since file-based syncing is (afaik) always all-or-nothing with single files. Sure, you could then switch to use multiple files, but then portability suffers.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com