Episode 204: FOSSY 2023 with Adam Monsen

Guest

Adam Monsen

Panelist

Richard Littauer

Show Notes

Hello and welcome to Sustain! Richard is in Portland at FOSSY, the Free and Open Source Software Yearly conference that is held by the Software Freedom Conservancy. In today’s episode, Richard is joined by Adam Monsen, co-founder of the open source conference, SeaGL, and author of the soon-to-be-published book, Steadfast Self-Hosting: Rapid-Rise Personal Cloud, which aims to guide individuals and groups towards personal data control, an important step towards autonomy, agency, and freedom. The discussion highlights the value of self-hosting data, its potential applications, and the benefits it can bring to small and mid-sized businesses. Adam shares that his book is free and open for remixing and reprinting, and it will not only be a guide but also serve as a starting point for tech authors. Hit download now to hear more!

[00:01:36] Adam talks about his book which aims to guide people on how to maintain control over their personal data.

[00:02:33] The conversation moves towards the difficulties faced while extracting personal data from large tech companies, and Adam suggests the use of open source servers and software like Nextcloud to migrate data.

[00:03:31] Adam mentions that the first step towards data sovereignty could be purchasing his book, which provides guidance on setting up personal servers and services.

[00:06:11] Why did Adam write this book? He explains why and shares his experience with self-hosting data for his family and emphasizes that doing this for a group can be empowering and meaningful.

[00:07:27] Richard brings up the shift from cloud to self-hosting by Basecamp and he wonders if Adam thought about pitching any of his book towards businesses to host their own data.

[00:09:53] Richard mentions a group in the UK working to create a standard for APIs to allow users to extract their data from big tech companies and maintain ownership.

[00:11:11] Adam affirms his willingness to contribute and underscores the value of individual data ownership, using healthcare records as an example of a system that could greatly benefit from more seamless data sharing.

[00:12:12] Richard brings up the topic of digital sovereignty, and Adam tells us his view that data sovereignty should be more about serving individuals and small groups, transcending politics, and should be capable of crossing borders.

[00:13:52] Adam tells us where you can find his book online and he reveals that the book will serve as a starting point for tech authors who are stuck or uncertain about where you begin. Also, the book build system itself will be free and open source.

Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

RICHARD LITTAUER: Hello and welcome to Sustain. I am here again at FOSSY, the Free and Open-Source Software Conference Yearly run by Software Freedom Conservancy.

This is its first year and I'm here in Portland, Oregon, which is just completely sunny. It's amazing. It's actually really nice, especially as Vermont is entirely underwater. But yeah, it's just good to be here and I'm here with a guest today.

I'm Richard Littauer (if you didn't know that already) and my guest today is Adam Monsen coming down from Seattle. Adam, how are you doing?

ADAM MONSEN: Doing very well, Richard. Thank you for having me.

RICHARD LITTAUER: Thank you for coming on. So Adam, we just had a short chat before the podcast. Super cool. One of the founders of SeaGL, which is probably one of my favorite conferences. Free, every time. Stuff that people are passionate about. Seattle GNU/Linux Conference. It doesn't just mean GNU/Linux it means all of open source as a seagull as their mascot. Is it a glaucous-winged gull or an Olympic gull or a Herring gull? Do you have a species definition for that?

ADAM MONSEN: (laughs) I have no idea.

RICHARD LITTAUER: Okay, cool. Anything I missed when describing SeaGL?

ADAM MONSEN: You nailed it.

RICHARD LITTAUER: Excellent. That's because it's amazing. It's coming out November 11th. It's going to be the 11th time.

ADAM MONSEN: Back in person at the UW.

RICHARD LITTAUER: U-DUB! Two fireplaces this year. Very exciting. Salt was keen to share that. So, Adam is one of the drivers behind that. We've already talked about that on the podcast before. Go back to Deb Nicholson's episode, one of the early ones to hear more about that. We're probably going to have another episode coming out in October to remind you to go to this free-to-attend virtual or in-person conference. Super exciting.

Adam, let's focus on some other stuff. I know you're an author. What's the book you're working on?

ADAM MONSEN: I'm calling it Steadfast Self-Hosting: Rapid-Rise Personal Cloud. It's a manifesto for people who care about having their own data. Not necessarily for privacy, although that's a common motive. The fundamental theory I'm trying to push forward this concept of data sovereignty, I didn't make it up, but the idea is you have your own data for not just you, your small group, your family, your community, your project, your school. And with that, you gain power, autonomy, agency, freedom--for the idealistic stance--but, the approach is very practical, very pragmatic.

RICHARD LITTAUER: So I love that concept. In practice, it's very difficult to get your data out of any of the monoliths--

ADAM MONSEN: It is.

RICHARD LITTAUER: --that currently exist. And it's also difficult to have the tools necessary to effectively mine the data in the way that's immediately useful for you. Can you tell me how you take that extra step of saying "get your own data" to, "oh, this is actually kind of cool and useful and fun."

ADAM MONSEN: Yeah. There's no wrong place to start, but it's worth it.