Web apps are convenient, but you don't have any control over them. You never know if your favorite tool will evaporate when the company goes out of business or, as was the case of Google Reader, simply discontinued.
Of course you can try running your own server loaded up with open source applications, but that's still a real pain for most non-geeks.
Former Google engineer Kenton Varda and neuroscientist Jade Wang think they've come up with way to fix both of these problems. It's called Sandstorm: an open source project that gives you just as much control over cloud apps as you get on your very own servers, but without the hassles.
To setup an application on Amazon's cloud service, you need to install an operating system, setup virtual machines, install all of the apps's prerequisites before you can even think about install the app itself. Then you've got to manage all the updates for the operating system, the app and all its dependencies. With Sandstorm, which is now in a closed alpha testing phase, all you have to do is sign-in with your Google or GitHub account, find the app you want in the service's app store, and click on it to install it. Sandstorm takes care of all the prerequisites, updates and maintanence.
It's not a far-fetched idea. There are already plenty of companies selling cheap web hosting, and many of them make it trivial to install popular applications such as the blogging platform WordPress or the e-commerce system Magento. But many of today's most interesting open source projects, such as the up-and-coming blogging platform Ghost and the security-centric email client Mailpile, require extra stuff---specific programming languages, for example---that most commodity web hosts don't support.
>Sandstorm is trying to make it easy for web hosts to run just about any Linux application.
The problem is that it's hard to build hosting platforms that can simultaneously support everything that all of these cool open source tools require. Sandstorm is trying to fix this problem by making it easy for web hosts to run just about any Linux application, regardless of what language it's written in or what web server software it requires. And though Sandstorm will offer its own application hosting service, the software platform is open source, so any hosting company can run it.
This approach has its downsides. You still have to trust your host not to read your data, sell it to marketers, or hand it over to the government without telling you. But Varda and Wang say this approach will be a huge improvement over the way things are done today because, eventually, you'll be able to choose between multiple hosts. For example, if you were worried about U.S. search and seizure laws, you could select a host in a country with laws you find more favorable. "In this environment, hosts will be competing on trustworthiness rather than on features," Varda says. And because the software is open source, you could always run the platform on your own server, if you really wanted to.
One downside is that applications won't run on Sandstorm without some modifications. Varda says the process of "porting" apps to Sandstorm is simple, and the company already has a few developers working on porting applications to the platform. The platform, which is now in alpha, can already run Ghost, Mailpile, and several other popular applications.
But long-term success will depend heavily on getting other developers to port applications to the platform. Fortunately Varda and Wang, who are engaged to be married, are both well known in geek circles. At Google, Varda open sourced a machine-to-machine communication system called Protocol Buffers, which is now open source and widely used by many other companies, including Twitter. After leaving the company he created a successor called Cap'n Proto, which is already being used at security company CloudFlare and as part of the popular Linux distribution Ubuntu. But Varda is probably best known for his house, which he remodeled specifically to make it ideal for video game parties.
Wang has a PhD in neuroscience and did human-computer interaction research at NASA's Ames Research Center and is now leads the developer engagement program Meteor, but she's best known for her work as an organizer of Chez JJ, a network of live/work spaces for geeks.
But they won't be able to rely on personal reputation and community building alone. Eventually they'll need to make Sandstorm into a place to actually make money for the people porting apps to the platform. To that end, the company is planning an app marketplace where developers will be able to sell their apps — including ones that aren't open source.
Sandstorm will make money a few ways. First of all, it will sell hosting, with plans starting at about $5 a month. The company will also take a cut of the sales of any non-open source apps sold through its marketplace. Open source apps will be sold on a "pay what you want" basis, and users will have the option of giving Sandstorm a cut, but it will be entirely at the user's discretion. Eventually, the company will also sell services and support to large corporations that want to run Sandstorm's platform internally on their own servers. In the meantime, the company has launched an IndieGoGo to raise money from early adopters.
Correction: 1:30 PM EST 7/30/2014 An earlier version of this story called Varda the creator of Protocol Buffs. Although he maintained and open sourced the project, he was not the original creator.
