File sharing, streamlining, and support plans with ownCloud 8

Version 8.0 of the ownCloud web-service platform was released in February. As was the case with previous releases, a basic installation offers a variety of cloud-like services for managing information: shared file storage, contact and calendar synchronization, online document editing, and so forth. The project also supports an API on top of which a variety of third-party web apps can run. The new release brings with it a renewed effort to make installing and managing these add-on apps easier and more reliable, plus several tools to make running one's own, private ownCloud server simpler. Finally, the company that underwrites ownCloud's development has announced that users who run such private server installations will be able to purchase support plans—something that was previously reserved only for enterprise customers.

The 8.0 release comes about eight months after the last major update, 7.0. The project makes builds available in a variety of formats, from source archives to installer bundles intended for use on shared web hosting plans. Packages for a variety of Linux distributions are also available for download. There are desktop applications available for managing shared folders, and an Android app for device synchronization (the app, interestingly enough, is a for-pay offering in Google's Play Store, but is available for free through F-Droid).

Users interested in testing out ownCloud 8 on a publicly reachable server (as opposed to installing it locally on their own machine) also have an opportunity to do that. The project has a three-hour "test drive" program available through a web hosting provider. The trial offers 1GB of storage space and is fairly painless to set up (although one must still walk through the hosting company's full setup process, including frustrating steps like trying to guess at an available subdomain name).

There are a few changes in the project's release practices worth pointing out, though. First, in the past, there were two separate editions of ownCloud: the Community Edition and the Enterprise Edition—the latter being aimed at businesses and coupled with paid support plans from ownCloud, Inc. As of 8.0, the Community Edition has been renamed "ownCloud server" (although not all of the references on the web site have been updated to reflect this).

There are still functional differences between the offerings: the Enterprise version features integration with services likely to be necessary in corporate IT environments (like Microsoft SharePoint and Oracle databases), and it adds support for using some different file-storage back-ends (including Amazon S3 and Ceph) as primary storage. But, as of the 8.0 release, the extra functionality in the Enterprise edition comes via a separate set of Enterprise apps and different default configuration, not from a different server codebase. And non-Enterprise users can still use Amazon S3 and Ceph for storage—they simply do not come configured as the primary back-end storage layers.

The second change is that, starting with version 8, the project is moving to a time-based release schedule with an accompanying version-numbering scheme. Version 8.1 is scheduled to arrive in three months, followed by two more quarterly point releases (8.2 and 8.3), with 9.0 set to arrive one year from now.

Last, but certainly not least, ownCloud Inc. has announced that it will offer commercial support plans for users running the "server" (i.e., non-Enterprise) version of ownCloud 8. The support plans are on the low end compared to the Enterprise offerings—users get email support only, and only during 8-to-5 business hours (those hours being measured from offices in Europe or on the East or West coasts of the US). But that is still, hopefully, a more reliable tech-support avenue than asking questions on a community mailing list or IRC channel, and it may produce another revenue stream to support development.

So far, the company has managed to not build different features into the community edition and enterprise edition of the server, which is reassuring to see. Prior to version 8, there was an additional API in the enterprise edition; as will be discussed later, this has now been merged into the community version, too. There are also community-built substitutes available for several of the enterprise apps (such as logging or Shibboleth authentication).

To the cloud

All in all, the changes found in the 8.0 release fall into a few general categories. A lot of work has gone into making user-interface (UI) improvements, both on the user-visible side and in the administrative interface. There are also a handful of new and updated features. Finally, the new release integrates some changes to the way third-party apps are designed and deployed—changes that may primarily interest app developers at present, but should make for a better user experience in the long run.

On the UI front, there is a new interface for working with shared files. In the web interface, one can open a pop-up dialog for each stored file and folder to change the sharing settings. There is a download link to provide to everyone who needs access to the file, plus straightforward password-protection and time-expiration checkboxes to limit that access when necessary. Any active sharing enabled for a file is also visible in the file browser thanks to an indicator that appears next to the file name.

There is also a "favorites" feature that, at the moment, is fairly limited in scope: the user can star files in the main file browser, then access these "favorite" files in a separate sidebar. But the project indicates that there is more to come here: "favorites" are just the first metadata field tracked by the application. The plan is to roll out additional metadata filters (like "recently used" and "recently changed") in future updates.

The 8.0 release notes also tout an improved search interface, although my tests found this feature to be a mixed bag. It is, indeed, remarkably fast at showing search results (and the search box is available on every screen, which is key). But it only appears to search the contents of the current folder—not including subfolders—which leaves quite a bit to be desired. That is particularly frustrating because the release notes include a screenshot indicating that ownCloud-wide search ought to be supported.

Interface improvements are available on the administrative side as well, which (in a practical sense) is likely to be just as important as UI improvements on the user side—considering how many early ownCloud users run their own server. In particular, the various administrative tasks have been streamlined into a single page with handy links in the sidebar to the important sections. There are also improved tools for managing large numbers of user accounts and use groups, letting administrators search and sort on multiple fields, apply changes to multiple selected users, edit existing group names, and so on—features that were unsupported in the past.

Finally, app installation has been significantly simplified. The available third-party apps are listed in an app-browser reminiscent of Firefox's current add-on browser. Each available app has a single "install" button, version and update information is clearly listed for each app, and there is a one-click tool for restricting access to each app by user group.

Behind the clouds

Under the hood, the revamped app-management system also marks a functional change. In previous ownCloud releases, the download bundle included an entire suite of add-on apps that were not enabled in the default settings. That made activating them rapid, of course, but it also made for a much larger download. Starting in version 8.0, only the basic file-storage and sync apps come built in; all of the others (including standard apps developed by the project, like Calendar and Contacts), are downloaded when they are installed from the web interface.

Another set of less-visible changes affect file sharing. Starting with version 8.0, file sharing supports federation—that is, a folder can be shared directly between two ownCloud instances running on different hosts, not just between one ownCloud instance and a desktop machine. Users set up a federated share by entering otherusername@remoteOwnCloudServer.example.com in the "Share with a user or group" field. At the moment, that relies on the user already knowing the correct username and address of the other ownCloud server, but it is a step in the right direction, and is more secure than emailing a public link to the folder in question.

The other new file-sharing feature is support for downloading a file directly from its underlying storage (e.g., Dropbox, Amazon's S3, a Gluster server). By bypassing the need to funnel the download through the ownCloud server, this should significantly speed up file access when large groups of people work on the same set of files, or for ownCloud servers that simply have a lot of user accounts.

For third-party app developers, ownCloud 8.0 also includes some changes to app packaging and development. Dependency management is now built into ownCloud server; an app needs to include a list of any dependencies in an XML file, but the ownCloud server will automatically resolve those dependencies (where possible) when a user installs an app. That includes dependencies on underlying system tools (such as a database version or library) and specific PHP extensions, as well as simpler dependency issues like ensuring that the correct version of ownCloud itself is running on the server.

There have also been a number of cleanups to the app API, with an emphasis on providing a more stable and predictable platform for app developers. Evidently, in previous releases, it was far from uncommon for a third-party app to rely directly on ownCloud's internal PHP classes and methods, leading to obvious stability problems across upgrades. The project has updated its developer documentation and tutorials to reflect this; users may only notice the change when they encounter less breakage in third-party apps.

There is also one entirely new API available in ownCloud 8.0: the user provisioning API, which enables external tools to query and change various user account settings like storage quotas, and to create or modify users and groups. It is most useful from an administrative standpoint, but it is interesting to note that the API was originally an Enterprise-Edition-only feature that has now been added to the non-Enterprise edition.

Evaluating the changes in ownCloud 8.0 can be a subjective affair. What one gets out of ownCloud depends on how one intends to use it. As a replacement for proprietary cloud services like Google Drive and Google Calendar, the latest version is easy to use and just as powerful. How one feels about all the additional apps might vary somewhat—I found the Documents collaborative-editor app to be a bit more awkward and less integrated, for instance.

But the project is doing well to focus on the core—whatever other apps anyone uses, everyone needs access to files of some sort. It will also be interesting to see how the support plans for non-Enterprise customers fare as a fundraising endeavor. Other free-software web-application projects would, no doubt, like to find a reliable revenue stream that does not hinge on "open core" shenanigans or charging for commodities like file storage. Perhaps lightweight end-user support, if done right, could be just such an opportunity.