Scaling Friend OS, the first Sky Computing Platform
For seven years, the Friend Software team has been working tirelessly on building the Friend OS — a new type of virtual computer and Meta Operating System (“MetaOS”) that runs in your browser. In a world where computing is increasingly moving to the cloud, we’ve come to a junction point where companies and users are considering how to unify their scattered services into one.
Friend OS is the first “Sky Computing” platform — a technology that seamlessly combines multiple cloud infrastructures into one with easy to learn user interfaces. This way, we allow users to combine the tools and resources they currently depend on with new ones. Connect to your BigTech toolkit — but start considering the new features provided in Friend.
Sky computing is a business and consumer-focused computing platform that represents a major advance over current cloud environments (…). It goes beyond hybrid cloud by making computing infrastructure unnoticeable to users. https://www.ibm.com/thought-leadership/institute-business-value/report/sky-computing
Friend OS is now in version 1.2.6 — we call it “Hydrogen 3”. This version takes the first short steps into the world of scalable infrastructure and architecture. You may take a peak at the technology on Github — it’s Open Source.
The Sky Computer
When you log onto a Friend server network through your web browser, you are accessing a virtual computer that runs Friend OS. We call this privacy oriented environment a “Sky Computer”. Think of it as a personal computer that you can access online via any browser-enabled device.
The Sky Computer is quite a bit different from traditional “online desktops” you may be familiar with. The Sky Computer does a fair share of its processing on your local device. This way, we may increase your privacy by performing encryption before data leaves your hands. Additionally, we may offer more real-time performance, as we’re not depending on streaming applications — Friend’s apps are literally running on your device.
We’re trying to make it extremely easy for people to get their own Sky Computer. This is why we created Friend Sky, our Sky Computing service. Here, new users can claim and activate their own Sky Computer in seconds or minutes. Depending on which way you want to log in. Authentication choices will be expanded as we build the service.
It’s a big deal
As a distribution channel for apps and services, Friend Sky provides all users with most of what is expected on platforms like Google’s G-Suite or Microsoft’s Office 365. We provide e-mail, calendar, office and cloud (sky) storage. We provide chat and video conferencing. In one space.
The common business model for large scale cloud platforms is ad revenue and aggressive data mining. We all know the phrase “You are the product”, right? Friend Sky takes a new (actually, it’s a good old) approach. Users pay for increased storage and extra functionality — and the service provider stays out of their hair.
Friend Sky has been in development for a few years. We’re now ready to invite users more broadly, and collect feedback. Next, we want to offer a free Sky Computer to anyone in the world.
Getting to millions of users
Going from thousands to millions of users is not a simple feat. Lots of technology architecture design is involved. Lots of planning and testing takes place. A fair bit of marketing is required. As they say; “Rome wasn’t built in a day”.
When engineering digital platforms that aim to serve millions of users, various stages of technology refactoring is required. With Friend Sky, we’re just starting on this voyage. We’re working on three types of clustering. And we’re deciding on the best strategies for sharding — the art of partitioning data processing to enable great performance at scale. In the end, we aim to provide the users of the world an infinitely scalable platform where they do not only consume services, but provide them as well — through the Friend Store. Here, users can share and sell their own software and products. You may read an early and slightly outdated article on the Store here.
With Friend, we have an opportunity to help open up the Internet and break with the status quo. This is sorely needed as over seven billion people are getting accustomed to the same gatekeeper channels every day. These gatekeepers check their users’ e-mail. Vet their messages. Advice them on their behavior. Police them.
The gatekeeper platforms are built by BigTech — a term now widely recognized as representative for the largest multinational companies that operate online. These companies have blurred the lines between government authority and corporate interest. Because of them, the Internet has been kindof captured. In my opinion, this does not sound like the future we were promised. We were promised freedom!
Our goal is to make the Internet a little more fun again. By protecting the user’s right to privacy and thus empower them, we want to be a glimmer of light in this dark era of the World Wide Web.
Get your own Friend Sky account!
If you are keen on giving Sky Computing a try yourself, hurry over to FriendSky.cloud and create your own free account.
