Community interest: a small DAV cloud service with messaging?
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Hi everyone!
I am thinking about setting up a small donation supported cloud service that could be integrated with UT quite well.
After giving the comments from a recent Q&A some thoughts, I agree that a centralized service isn't the way to go and that massive cloud hosting based on Nextcloud (or similar) is too technically complicated at scale.
But I think there is a nice middle way, called Hubzilla: https://zotlabs.org/help/
It has a standard CalDAV/CardDAV and WebDAV file storage build in so it is compatible with existing UT software, but the main differentiation is that it supports so called "nomadic identities", meaning you can easily migrate from one instance to another and you can even have cloned accounts on multiple instances so that when one goes down you can easily continue using the other almost seamlessly.
It is also a Fediverse compatible (Mastodon etc.) social media platform that allows forming private groups/events, share pictures privately with your friends and family, and even has a markdown wiki build in.
It is also super easy to self-host, with small instances running easily on any shared php/mysql hoster.
So the idea would be to set up a basic donation supported hub that would allow people to easily move off Google/Facebook services (and WhatsApp as an XMPP server can be easily linked). It would have pretty basic services at the entry level with the option to upgrade by donating or alternatively easily moving to a self-hosted version without losing anything (for example to a pay-what-you want hoster like https://uberspace.de/ that should work nicely as a personal instance).
I already run a similar service on a server hosted in Germany, so that would not be a major effort to set up. Depending on the interest and willingness to donate, I might focus more on getting this to run as an open platform instead of just my own private one.
Looking forward to feedback
