Nostr Web Client

It's a trap because a pre built isn't sovriegn at all. You are trusting the maintainers of third party apps completely.

There is truth to this (and I'm not criticizing you in the least, just adding 2 cents to the convo). But if we nit pick all the way to the brass bolts, we would have to build our own operating system from scratch (which is pretty much what Start9 has been doing).

There is always going to be some trust factor involved with Self-Sovereignty. Do you verify every line of code of your open source software you select? More power to you, if you do.

Start9 is fully open-source. Their approved apps on their marketplace are open-source. And they make it easy to maintain a server. Not so much for Umbrel.

Ease of use, and a commitment to open-source, are strong selling points for their version of a pre-built.

Thank you for the article!

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Discussion

OceanSlim 8mo ago

I understand what you mean. The tradeoff for future headache is not worth it imo and it's far easier to just set up your own software individually than to use a "store" like umbrel. It's the same argument I have to not use something like snap in umbrel.

OceanSlim 8mo ago

You make a valid point. Thanks for reading!

OzzyHB 8mo ago

Start with the easy option. Build your own when you are ready..mind you, doing the second parr is going to be a hard step up "when you 'have a node' already"

OceanSlim 8mo ago

Precisely. And no, running a node does not involve building your own os. It just involves installing core... It's one program. Then another. The argument of verifying code falls flat. Do you read all the lines of core itself? Very few do. Bitcoin is open source too. The point is not that you have to trust. If you're being pedantic then sure. The point is you're relying on a maintainer to send you updates. You should be the one maintaining (updating) your own node. If you're not, then is it really your node?

To Izzy's point, going from already having a node to spinning up your own is a lot harder than just starting from spinning up your own. It involves basically shutting down everything one by one and replacing it with actual software and not docker containers. Which of course involves closing any open channels you may already have. Lost time, lost sats in unnecessary fees.

Running core and a lightning node from scratch is not hard. If start9 is a 1 out of 10 difficulty, I'd say doing it yourself is like 3 out of 10. It's really easy.