Greenhouse Update 3

🤔 Say that you have a computer and it has internet access

That computer can browse the web, but "the web" (or, web users around the globe) typically can't browse files or web applications running on that computer. Publishing a server on the internet takes work, costs money, and requires maintenance and upkeep. It can be especially difficult if you want to use your computer, not rent someone else's. If you live in a dormitory or if you get internet access via wifi from your neighbor or via tethering to your phone, you may not be able to perform the necessary modifications to your router's configuration even if you knew how.

Greenhouse provides an easy way to make one or more computers into servers that anyone in the world can connect to securely & reliably, regardless of where or how the servers are connected to the internet.

Greenhouse is being designed from the ground up as a trustless service, that is, you don't have to trust me or whoever's running the service to keep your data secure — it's designed so it can't access your data in the first place.

For more information about why I am building this, see greenhouse.server.garden and The "Pragmatic Path" 4-Year Update: Introducing Greenhouse!

You may also check out the source code at git.sequentialread.com/forest/greenhouse

Previous post in this series: Greenhouse Development Update 2 - May

Next post in this series: Greenhouse Development Update 4 - September

Phew! It's been a long time since I've released an update on greenhouse. A lot of things have been going on in my life. I had been feeling burned out and stopped trying to work on greenhouse for a while; tried to give myself a bit of a break from the grind.

As examples, a couple of other cool things happened, I helped organize cyberia's booth at the Twin Cities Pride 2021 event, and I also helped the amazing folks over at autonomic.zone fork Capsul, Cyberia's OC (Original Cloudprovider, Original Character, take your pick 😂).

I'll probably end up posting more about this collaboration in the future, because those folks are awesome and I love what they are doing 🔥🔥🔥. For now, check out the home page of their servers.coop project!.

But at any rate, this post was supposed to be about greenhouse. Unfortunately, I don't have much of an update to give; I just got back to working on it after a hiatus, and in terms of the actual greenhouse software, I don't have anything new to show. However, there are some potentially exciting updates in terms of how I am organizing the project & planning for the future.

First of all, I've applied for grant funding to push greenhouse forward through the NLNet User-Operated Internet Fund. I applied to the NLNet grant program last year for my Server Garden project (seedpacket and rootsystem), but my application was not accepted. I don't blame them; looking back, it probably didn't look great, and I don't think server garden was that great of an idea anyway; there are already a ton of similar projects like yunohost, cloudron, syncloud, nextcloud, freedombox, and sandstorm.

I'm not holding my breath for NLNet funding, but I do think that my application is a lot more compelling this time; I have a demo I can show, and my project is a lot more unique and specialized, providing something that REALLY does not exist currently.

You can check out the "marketing" page I created while I was doing the application here:

         -->   https://greenhouse.server.garden   <--

I also created a Greenhouse roadmap for the greenhouse homepage:

I've got my fingers crossed that NLNet likes my project enough to fund it; I would potentially be able to pay other developers real money to work on it, which would be incredibly exciting. I would feel great about being able to offer a work opportunity that involves building a better world. I feel like the grand majority of software jobs should not be accepted for ethical reasons, unfortunately, capitalism rules the world right now, and folks need money. It would be great if there were more ways to make money that don't require us to sell our souls. I would be extremely honored to be a part of that.

Of course, I'm still going to try my best to make greenhouse everything it can be, with or without grant funding. I have managed to scrape enough money together to fund myself for a while, and hopefully I can inspire others who have done the same, enough that they will want to use greenhouse and want to help it succeed.

See the previous post in this series: Greenhouse Development Update 2 - May

See the next post in this series: Greenhouse Development Update 4 - September

For more information about why I am building this, see greenhouse.server.garden and The "Pragmatic Path" 4-Year Update: Introducing Greenhouse!

You may also check out the source code at git.sequentialread.com/forest/greenhouse