Unsung heroes of the Nextcloud Community: Jason Bayton

Originally published at: Unsung heroes of the Nextcloud Community: Jason Bayton - Nextcloud

Jason Bayton is one of the community managers of the Nextcloud community. He hails from Wales and enjoys playing tuba and trombone when he is not working. When he is not playing his favorite instruments, he moonlights to contribute to open source projects he supports. In his day job he works as a Senior EMM Consultant and Android Subject Matter Expert. He is interested in Enterprise Mobility, Android, Linux, Virtualization and more.

Jason came in contact with Free Software some 10 years ago when he was becoming extremely frustrated with Windows and was on a quest for alternatives. Thatā€™s when he discovered Ubuntu Linux.

ā€œIā€™d also finally moved from Windows Mobile to Android around then too. In hindsight that was a pretty pivotal period in influencing where I am today,ā€ said Jason.

That step also transformed him from a consumer to a contributor. He has dabbled with so many projects that he doesnā€™t even remember when he started contributing to Free Software: ā€œHonestly I couldnā€™t say. Iā€™ve dabbled here and there through the years.Getting to know about Nextcloud

Jason was aware of Nextcloud the day it sprang to life. ā€œSelf-hosting my data for what is primarily remote access has been an uphill battle for a long time (Iā€™ve tried many self-hosted solutions, nothing really stuck) so when a Nextcloud forked from ownCloud I heard about it pretty quickly,ā€ he said.
ownCloud had everything that Jason would expect from such a project. But dual licensing was a deal breaker for him. ā€œKnowing NC were going completely FOSS and moving to a support-based business model, as primarily a home user, was exciting to hear. Youā€™ve likely read the stories of how Nextcloud came to be so I wonā€™t repeat it, but the principles and plans they laid out appealed to me. I felt it would be rude not to give it a go.ā€

Jasonā€™s Nextcloud production install resides on a hex-core, 32GB RAM, Ubuntu 16.04 server utilizing 52TB of ZFS-backed storage for media, documentation, backups ā€“ pretty much his entire digital life.

ā€œI make use primarily of the remote storage app to bring the array into Nextcloud, as that allows me to utilize basic protocols such as SMB/NFS/SFTP externally to Nextcloud when Iā€™m working locally, while remaining available and up to date when I access it remotely. All of my mobile devices sync automatically, not only the camera folder but a wide range of data is regularly synced up to the server. The server is of course shared amongst family and so I can know everyoneā€™s data is also backed up securely without risk of loss should a laptop or phone die unexpectedly.ā€

Getting involved with Nextcloud

Volunteer contributors are the true strength of any open source project. As usual, Jason evolved from being a user to a contributor to Nextcloud. His support for Nextcloud is entirely voluntarily. ā€œNextcloud like many FOSS solutions are primarily community supported and driven.Iā€™m but one of many volunteers doing a little bit to progress the project where I can.ā€

Today he is involved with the project in the area of community management: ā€œIā€™ve popped the odd PR in here and there, reported bugs/enhancements, created some decent documentation, host demo servers and the like, but itā€™s on help.nextcloud.com Iā€™m mainly involved; helping to build the community, troubleshoot issues, and generally act as a friendly face for people new and old who stop by.ā€

One of the many reasons he chose Nextcloud over ownCloud was licensing, but thatā€™s not the only reason. Jason cites these four reasons why he absolutely loves Nextcloud, as an user:

  • The open licensing model
  • The flexibility of the platform
  • The community of helpful and friendly people
  • The speed at which development happens ā€“ particularly with the Android builds!

Since he is actively involved with the community side of Nextcloud there are also many things that he loves about the Nextcloud community:

  • The diverse users from across the world engaging in conversation
  • The friendliness and willingness of members to help one another
  • The fact that the Nextcloud team regularly engages with the community
  • The openness and transparency of the project

Challenges ahead of the Nextcloud community

Being a relatively new project thatā€™s going through the process of continuous innovation and improvement, there are some challenges that face the Nextcloud community. ā€œThere are generally many more seeking help than those available to provide it, I do see ā€“ like any project ā€“ the odd complaint that (voluntary) support is not sufficient.ā€

While there is commercial support available, Jason feels itā€™s too expensive for the home users and small groups who want better than community support for their issues. He believes as the community grows this is improving somewhat, but itā€™s still a present concern.

Another common concern Jason sees is that Nextcloud isnā€™t simple enough for the average home user to install and set up. ā€œI think projects like NextcloudPi and the Official VMs are helping considerably, but we need more products like the Nextcloud Box sitting under my desk; that was a great idea that could feed mass adoption of Nextcloud, but the limitations of V1 were difficult to overcome. Iā€™m hopeful that with V2 weā€™ll see more capable hardware and a manufacturing partner that wonā€™t shut down on us.ā€

You can follow Jason to keep up with his work: GitHub, Twitter, LinkedIn

Guest post by Swapnil Bhartiya

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well said. and it was about time to let ppl know of one of the unsung heroes of NC community.

though i need to add one or two things to this praise.
one and foremost i need to put out that @JasonBayton ā€¦ the following fits onto him like perfect as well

you usually can rely blindly upon his comments and hints. plus he has a very british kind of humour which i really do love

and i will always keep in mind his great support work by letting us - the community - just use his demo-instances for NC9-13 for free ā†’ Demo instances of 9-14 now live - thatā€™s simply hilarious. thanks over and over again, jason.

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Great article and Iā€™m glad @JasonBayton gets a little reward for his very nice and friendly help! I really appreciate your efforts and the time you spent to help the users, Jason.

I totally agree that there are many, many users (not to say ā€œtoo manyā€) seeking for help and a little bit too few experts who can provide 100% reliable help (Iā€™m just guessing and praying most of the time :smiley: ), but with you we handle it pretty well, I think :+1:

Another thing I totally agree. Iā€™m missing the Nextcloud box. I wanted to buy one and set it up as test server at home and/ or give (another one maybe) it plug and play ready to a friend as a gift. But the box was nowhere available to buy. Reading something about v1 and v2 gives me hope there will be a (new) box available again some day :star_struck:

A big thank you as well to Nextcloud for sharing this article with us and praising the unsung hero Jason Bayton! :+1:
Feels good that you donā€™t forget about the community :heart:

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Nā€™aww you guys.

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I always thought he was part of the Nextcloud team from the beginning !

Nice article.
Iā€™ve made a new nextcloud installation this weekend. 6TB of Data - 30 Usersā€¦
I will install it at another clientā€™ Office next month.
I 100% promoting Nextcloud

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@Nemskiller So you are the other unsung hero of Nextcloud! :smiley: :+1:

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Iā€™ll take that as a complimentā€¦ :slight_smile:

Yes you should !

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good stuff,

thanks for your work @JasonBayton, @tflidd, @JimmyKater and the others!

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@schmu for sure, as wellā€¦ and there are moreā€¦ many more (not too much, though)

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:flushed:
Thank you very much @JimmyKater
:hugs:

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@JasonBayton has been a huge help for me in the past, not only with his insights for Nextcloud, but he also has a fantastic post on setting up LXD on Ubuntu 16.04 with ZFS which has been a huge help for me and some of the servers I set up :slight_smile: Thank you Jason!

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Recently updated for the release of 18.04 as well, no less. Hereā€™s to the next 4 5 years of LTS LXDā€™ing with Nextcloud :slight_smile:

Sweet! Will be keeping an eye on the 18.04 stuff, as I have some people who will be interested in whatā€™s new. I have a near 2 year old box running 16.04 and LXD like a charm, did the same on my own box but personally moved to FreeBSD and jails :slight_smile:

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Thanks for your good work! Also, thanks for hosting the demos.

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I was never a tech guy and after my bad owncloud experience i switched over to nextcloud.

After searching and asking how to deploy and configure a nexcloud instance the right way, Jason pointed me in the right direction and after i got stuck in my poor Linux knowledge it was him, again, who assisted me and truly helped me!

If I have a nextcloud server, I owe it to you mate!

@JasonBayton you are a helpful and nice person most of all and nowadays those are rare to find.
The ā€˜bauhausā€™ design guy owes you big time, and Iā€™ll be always here to help you out whenever you need!

Has a Community leader you are all I can add it is ā€œYou keep this guy!!!ā€ :smile:

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Just found your Website 2 weeks ago. Very usefull, very inspiring. Just Tanks.