I think they explain a compelling problem about typical commerical software vs FOSS, then they dive into their GPU accelerated VM solution. I don't see how it helps solve the original problem.
Is is that FOSS needs a standard sandbox and they think some kind of peer to peer app store that disturbes images for VMs is the way to do it?
We work on GPU accelerated VMs, so that in future we can also bring NixOS + VPNs to desktops/end users to machines that don't run NixOS. We will use it as an application runtime where can control the whole stack. Just now we are mostly focused on managing distributed NixOS machines. The VPN helps to provide services on any kind computer, even if not running in a datacenter. You can read the description here for context: https://docs.clan.lol/
Maybe I'm in the same boat as people who didn't get docker before it was popular, but this seems really convoluted to me... is there really a market for this? Why do other existing things not solve this problem?
I'm not understanding the need for this? I cant believe i'm parroting corporate lobbyists, but this seems like a solution in search of a problem.
It sounds more like a way to take freedom away from people. Commercial systems are designed in such a way that offering that convenience is at the expense of control and ownership. Just because people trade freedoms for this level of ease, doesn't make it right.
It's a bit of a two edged sword but it's something we definitely need. Look at project like Qubes and Secureblue that try to implement this. It solves several issues:
Packaging Apps on Linux has been and always will be, a nightmare. Just giving up and sending whole VMs is basically a variant of what docker does.
Permission Management is also quite necessary and Linux Desktop/DBUS is horrible in that regard. There's recently been a post about this[0]. Especially part 5 is just... GNOME Developers being GNOME Developers...
A lot of Apps also open untrusted files and even run untrusted code. Browsers, PDFs, or Excel Macros? God only knows what kind of exploits and hidden software landmines there are.
And last but not least there's also just badly coded apps that can get pwned from remote sources. Think some game running horrible c++ code connecting peer to peer with random clients. All of them could easily buffer overflow some random function and take over all your files.
I think they explain a compelling problem about typical commerical software vs FOSS, then they dive into their GPU accelerated VM solution. I don't see how it helps solve the original problem.
Is is that FOSS needs a standard sandbox and they think some kind of peer to peer app store that disturbes images for VMs is the way to do it?
We work on GPU accelerated VMs, so that in future we can also bring NixOS + VPNs to desktops/end users to machines that don't run NixOS. We will use it as an application runtime where can control the whole stack. Just now we are mostly focused on managing distributed NixOS machines. The VPN helps to provide services on any kind computer, even if not running in a datacenter. You can read the description here for context: https://docs.clan.lol/
Maybe I'm in the same boat as people who didn't get docker before it was popular, but this seems really convoluted to me... is there really a market for this? Why do other existing things not solve this problem?
There is huge demand right now to create sandboxes for agents. VMs are one way, and Clan one solution for VM management.
Maybe they are not the right solution, but they are working on the right problem.
Of course, they don't say the focus on agents, but if the solution works with them, it doesn't matter that it was built for gamers.
I'm not understanding the need for this? I cant believe i'm parroting corporate lobbyists, but this seems like a solution in search of a problem.
It sounds more like a way to take freedom away from people. Commercial systems are designed in such a way that offering that convenience is at the expense of control and ownership. Just because people trade freedoms for this level of ease, doesn't make it right.
It's a bit of a two edged sword but it's something we definitely need. Look at project like Qubes and Secureblue that try to implement this. It solves several issues:
Packaging Apps on Linux has been and always will be, a nightmare. Just giving up and sending whole VMs is basically a variant of what docker does.
Permission Management is also quite necessary and Linux Desktop/DBUS is horrible in that regard. There's recently been a post about this[0]. Especially part 5 is just... GNOME Developers being GNOME Developers...
A lot of Apps also open untrusted files and even run untrusted code. Browsers, PDFs, or Excel Macros? God only knows what kind of exploits and hidden software landmines there are.
And last but not least there's also just badly coded apps that can get pwned from remote sources. Think some game running horrible c++ code connecting peer to peer with random clients. All of them could easily buffer overflow some random function and take over all your files.
[0] https://blog.vaxry.net/articles/2025-dbusSucks
Is clan some kind of p2p server config management framework based on Nix?
I think this fits the description well.