Start9's Community Developer Program
Background
In May, 2023, we announced our Community Tech Program, a novel approach to scaling customer support. The program reconciles on-demand and freelance labor to deliver a "win-win-win" for all parties. Start9 gets a globally-distributed team of trained technicians at a reasonable cost; our customers get on-demand, expert guidance and support; and program participants get a non-obligatory, flexible way to stack sats while helping others navigate their sovereign computing journey.
Today, we are excited to announce our Community Developer Program!
What is a Package Developer?
StartOS is a new kind of server operating system that aims to simplify server administration and make self-hosting accessible to everyone. This is achieved, in part, through an extensive package API that enables a sysadmin to encode themselves into the user experience of a service.
Imagine you have a non-technical friend who wants to self-host something. They have no idea what they're doing, so you offer to help. Step-by-step, you instruct them which buttons to click and what commands to run. You ask them questions about their intended usage, then research the config values needed to achieve it. They trust you to generate keys, credentials, and certificates on their behalf. You write some custom scrips and throw them on a cron to monitor health and issue notifications. Finally, you leave them with a long list of instructions, including terminal commands to run under various circumstances. A week later, your friend calls: "Stuff is broken. Things are not working. Is my data gone? Help!"
What if it didn't have to be like this? What if all those hours were an investment rather than an expense? Imagine if you could program a robot with everything you know about NextCloud and leave it at your friends house forever. Whenever your friend wanted to change something, or whenever something went wrong, the robot would guide and instruct your friend in exactly the way you would.
This is what it means to be a StartOS package developer.
Motivation
We are often contacted by companies, organizations, teams, and users, wondering if and when a particular service will become available for StartOS.
There are thousands of open source, self-hosted software services in the world. Start9 has committed to maintaining and supporting a small collection of them, but we couldn't possibly maintain and support them all. It's an absurd idea with no parallel. Developers package their apps for Mac/iOS; Apple does not package it for them.
Moreover, services that require extensive maintenance, monitoring, or configuration may produce StartOS packages that are themselves sizable applications!
The goal of the Community Developer Program is to ensure there are plentiful services available for StartOS, and to ensure they are well-packaged, resulting in great user experiences.
About the Program
Start9 will provide free training to anyone who wants to learn package development for StartOS. Training will be in the form of periodic live webinars of various skill levels, as well as regular "office hours" for asking questions and getting help, including pair programming with senior developers. Participants will learn the various capabilities and APIs offered by StartOS, and how to take advantage of them. You will learn best practices and advanced techniques to achieve your desired user experience.
Requirements
With enough persistence, anyone can package a service for StartOS. The more background knowledge/skills you have with Linux systems administration (self-hosting) and Typescript development, the easier it will be.
Start9 will not be teaching Typescript or systems administration. Participants are expected to have these skills or aquire those skills independently.
Certification
Those who stick around long enough and prove their abilities will become "certified" by Start9. Being certified means we will promote and recommend you to anyone who wants a service packaged for StartOS.
Crowdfunds and Bounties
StartOS has reached a level of popularity that individuals and companies, including Start9, are willing to pay to have services packaged for it. Whether its a recurring donation from Start9, a bounty from a company, or a crowdfund powered by the community, Start9 is committing to connecting those willing to pay for service packaging with community developers capable of getting it done.
How to Participate
Anyone interested in becoming a package developer should join the Start9 Developer Space on our self-hosted Matrix server where we have dedicated rooms for different topics and services. Schedules for webinars and office hours will be posted in the "Dev - Service Packaging" room.