S.O.S : Keep NextCloud Great

Hello everybody,
I start this thread because i saw (and i include myself) a lot of bitterness and salt against the way the NextCloud team is driving the boat, these days.
Every time there is a controversial topic we get no answer from the team or an answer that can be rough to hear, or sometime we get an answer that is well written but who is far away from the first declarations of NextCloud existence.

This thread is not here to make a list of problems and be salty against NextCloud. This thread is here to put solutions, wishes and advises that we want to talk with the NextCloud team. Because it seems that the bound between the community and the NC team is kind of broken.

Some community users get mad with some aspect on the way the NC team advertised and embedded opencore solutions (Talk HPB, OnlyOffice for example). @jospoortvliet told us several times that this is how NC wants to earn money. I’m not against earning $ at all, and NC GmbH is a company so they need money.

Some users are confused about the state of development on the NC Virtual Drive client. The last move on it was made in January by @camila but after that nothing. We don’t know if you don’t have anymore resources to put inside this dev, or if you have problem to find devs, or if you are going to throw away this idea of Virtual Drive.

What will be next are my ideas about making NextCloud better, if you share those ideas with me, put a thumbs up and comment in the section down bellow, i’d love to read news from you… (okay i stop the YouTube joke right now)

I would love that a NextCloud Community council can be created in order to address and talk with the NextCloud team about : ideas, issues, fears… Nothing of it would be an order addressed to the NC team to dev this idea or fix this issue, but it will be a signal to the team about what the Community think at this very moment. It can be a real nice step toward the community. Even if you don’t ear us by having another strategy in mind, at least we know that it was said.

I want so badly that NextCloud could be opened for donations, like a lot of others free software. Okay it may won’t be as much money as a HPB server to a client, but everyone who’s happy with the solution that this software gave him can be grateful to you and send money. You could advertise on it, “You like this software ? why don’t you help NC GmbH by making a donation for making the wheel turn again ?”. You could also make a Patreon like donation, that way you can have little money every month from an happy user. I make money thanks to NextCloud software (not all my job is relying on NC but i have some clients using it) i have no anger to gave a percentage of my money that i get thanks to them. Again this donation - patreon etc… won’t give anything in exchange, it’s simply helping money to keep NextCloud in production. Maybe you could be surprise by the number of donations that you could get. ### I just saw that : https://salt.bountysource.com/checkout/amount?team=nextcloud does this really goes into Nextcloud pocket @jospoortvliet?

Back in the days where ownCloud wasn’t forked, there was a Bounty website where you can create thread “Hey i need this feature in ownCloud, could someone can dev’ it for the community ? If it succeed, you get money”. I bet like a lot of other users on the “Make Delta-sync available for the ownCloud client”. Finally someone find a way to make it, and now this feature is in Beta mode in the ownCloud client. Some users wants a Jitsi integration, a BigBlueButton integration, a Matrix integration … NextCloud team and dev won’t do that because : 1- There is Talk (in case of Jitsi/Matrix) 2- Dev have other things to do that working on this dev. Why don’t we (the community) help people who’d like to start working of those kind of feature to be rewarded for that ? The app will be made, and it will be useful for the whole community.
###This website isn’t dead : https://www.bountysource.com/teams/nextcloud thanks @kesselb

These are the main three topics where i think Nextcloud can get better. I hope that @frank and other fellows that works for Nextcloud can ear us and start with us to make a better tomorrow.


Thank you again for reading me, you know i don’t use NextCloud 24h/24, i sometime need to relax myself. In order to achieve this I play RAID SHADOW LEGENDS on my iPhone. You know that this is the best A-RPG for mobile in 2019 with more that 2 Billions of downloads last month… (okay i stop the YouTube advertising right now)

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  1. It’s called Nextcloud with a lower c.
  2. https://www.bountysource.com/teams/nextcloud (see Don't use bountysource anymore! for details)
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@Nemskiller

thanks for this cool statement.

i just wanna pick one point that caught my eye from your essay. you claim that nextcloud gmbh should get in better contact with the community - us. but there are already ways doing that… like…

  • they (devs) read through the forum (here - i experienced much more than just one time that things that were discussed here found a solution within one of the next releases, without any of the devs ever commenting it here. so be sure: they read along through the forum)
  • the community on github… it’s not 1:1 the same as here… as there are more experienced users, even ppl that want to code and can code. they as well do add very positive input to nc and it’s directions
  • the regular real-life meetings (ok, the actual one is just shifted towards an online-meeting, due to the circumstances) - where really everyone is invited on a regular basis and nextcloud gmbh would even try to make it possible for everyone to get travelexpenses paid… or at least a financal help for it.

so what else could be installed to improve the communication - at least from your point of view?

further on you suggested something like putting up bounties to get things done. as @kesselb just showed (and to my same knowledge) there’s already something like that. plus there was a discussion about it on the forum where one of the lead-devs (yes, they do - at times - participate on the forum) was telling why he thinks that bounties aren’t the most promising way to success… from his point of view … the major point was: there are bounty-hunters doing like a quick&dirty work just to reveice the bounty and then off they go - leaving a badly coded piece of software - which - at worst case - would need a complete rewrite to really have a benefit from it. (if i would find the discussion i would have linked it)

and another important point here… is everyone’s own reciption of the quality of communication. if we are very honest to ourselves we would find out that most of the “bad vibes” always would come frome the same 3-5 (active) users here. yah. really not more. all in all it has been some more but most of them noticed that we are a quite strong community here and thus they always ended up with getting confronted with the facts and then were ingnored.
so … with a community of roughly 30.000 users… why do you think those 3-5 ppl here have such a power to kill the communication here? they are literally nothing… they just discuss everything quite loudly. so please everyone don’t overestimate their influence… (it’s like in real life… not the loudest ones are the majority)

anyways… thanks for your input here. for me it’s a sign of a stable community… which is normally questioning itself. which is very important, i think.

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I’ve noticed a trend on this forum. Lots of people complaining but nobody contributing to the open source project.

The only real issue I had so far is the transition from gallery to photos and the lack of communication regarding it, but as far as nextcloud goes their development has been on track and predictable. They improve on the core product. Apps are another matter and not part of the core project IMO.

@Nemskiller I think the real issue you have is that as stated you make money off nextcloud and don’t like the direction it’s going. Fair enough, but it’s not their problem.

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Helas, it’s so sad that i can’t leave my town, my work, my child for a two days escapade in Germany. I would love to by the way.

GitHub is great, but i think ideas need to get mature from talking back and forth here in help.nextcloud.com then when it’s a better shaped idea, make it ways on GitHub.

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hi @Paradox551

I am contributing to the OpenSource Project as another nickname.
I make money from NC software but i speak here as a normal user and librist user.
The core of NC is neat, and does better than other “FLOSS-like”. I love it very much that why i am a little “scared” to loose this great freedom when NC Hub came out with strange bound with Talk and OnlyOffice. But i’m not here to restart the fire on this thread, i’m here to :clap: (applause) Nextcloud and finding ways to get this help forum in peace.

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Yes but both onlyoffice and talk are apps that can be disabled or enabled. The core project has remained consistent and the 19 beta is shaping up really well.

If they start paywalling existing features and apps that’s another issue but that hasn’t happened yet.

And with luck they will replace onlyoffice with collabora. Onlyoffice removing mobile editing just after they were added to nextcloud is sketchy.

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i’ve added some more points to my answer from above… btw :wink:

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I have mixed feelings about this post. I agree that I miss the dev team stepping in the forum once in a while and finishing THE missing key feature to Nextcloud that will be Virtual Drive.

I also agree that Nextcloud is a quality opensource project and that the devs are keeping it reliable over time with each version.

I’m not a big fan of integrating everything into Nextcloud. I believe it should focus on files and files only. Talk, integrated Onlyoffice and the Hub philosphy are not my cup of tea. Keep the product simple, efficient and reliable.

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In fact now they have to compete with GDrive and OneDrive solutions that have :
Files
Contacts
Calendar
Mails
Tchat
Online Office editor

And from time to time they add new apps.

Basic users / Enterprise users can be catch by them with the excuse : Sorry Nextcloud but Microsoft have a great Online Office Editor and you don’t.

So Nextcloud need at least a product to team up for providing Online Office for exemple. Because Nextcloud don’t have the shoulders to take LibreOffice and mod’ it to be embedded into Nextcloud WebUI.
It’s sad in a way that the real FLOSS can be not ready for production, so you have to see an OpenCore product because he already done some work on it.

Apples to oranges. The onlyoffice app was for convenience… they have had integration with onlyoffice and collabora for a long time now just with some extra steps.

Once again the core of nextcloud has remained consistent through every version. They improve on it every version. Apps are an added convenience and are not a requirement.

I think nextcloud blows gdrive out of the water but that’s personal preference. I don’t particularly care for either gdrive or onedrive.

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I don’t understand why they should compete with these giants… I would rather have a good compatibility with Microsoft Office Online (which is the case and is not enough advertised and documented), a virtual drive and the ability to open files in Word and Excel from the web interface.

It might look good to be a complete product but the end users in businesses will tell you that it’s the only features they care about… I know it is different for the public user but since Nextcloud business plan is based on support it should focus on enterprise needs in my opinion.

They need to compete with these because of the Enterprise market.
If NC was only for small customers, families, they will have a different approach on it.
For some of my clients, they won’t accept my Nextcloud solution if it was only sync files. They use OnlyOffice and Talk for exemple.
And if you are an entreprise subscriber to Nextcloud, you won’t put this money if it was only for sync and support.

Your users expect something more then a file sync solution. Fine. I am perfectly happy with a file sync solution. Apps are not my priority.

Edit: Last I checked the enterprise offering was for added support anyway. Unless there are enterprise specific features other then the update branch?

@JimmyKater i re-read your answer. I understand it.
So tell me (i’m not agressive, it’s just a simple question) :
For example i want (i’m not a dev) to ask for a Jitsi integration into Nextcloud as an app.
What i have to do first ? Going GitHub ? Help. Nextcloud .com ?

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Yeah but Nextcloud forked ownCloud first because of the Entreprise model.
You want AD Integration for your ownCloud ? Buy the Entreprise expensive server.
Now you have if you want Nextcloud with file sync, AD Integration, SMB mounting, Online Office editor … even if you are Small Business or simple user.
It’s great, if you need a more specific dev, considere the Entreprise support.

I’m quite happy with that

we both know the answer… to github, of course.

but if everyone here would immediately go to github that would totally screw it… i think. look at the enormous amount of questions here that don’t respect any needed informations - and/or those others that never search the forum. or read the manual…

i mean in a perfect world the forum wouldn’t be needed pretty much since everyone would read and get themselves wiser before asking questions :wink: but the world is being far from perfect :smiley: right?

I don’t know those kind of things :upside_down_face:

But even asking for Jitsi while Talk is here can be listened on GitHub ? I won’t be closed by the NC team saying, sorry but we aren’t interested in. Because the Jitsi Integration can only be done by non-NC team devs…

There is already an open issue in the correct github repository about this and it hasn’t been closed yet, so no.

That’s a problem because it would replace Talk and probably the team doesn’t want it. And the Jisi integration it’s a good idea since Talk doesn’t work in the real world (at least the free version).

Same with the Onlyoffice integration, it’s a good idea but…it does not work if you use the internal app so you need to use a separate server if you want to use it (as in NC17) . The “old core” (files mainly) works as usual and perfect, but not the new features.

I mean, great core product but probably should be better to focus on deltasync (for example) than spend time in the OnlyOffice integration that was working fine in V17.

This is just a thought, NC is now in beta mode, the Hub is a great idea but really does not work well and as developer since the 80s, I’ve learned that sometimes we need to listen to the users understanding that they’re not attacking us, just showing a different point of view than sometimes, helps.

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