I Asked Mastodon About FOSS for Academics. Here's What They Said

Robert W. Gehl, 07 February 2021

I posted a question to Mastodon (specifically, scholar.social):

Ok! If you had a good budget to build a cloud infrastructure to support small teams (2-5 people) collaborating on projects, with a special focus on academic writing projects, what would you recommend?

I'm thinking Linux-based cloud stuff, so I have in mind: * Nextcloud * Jitsi * Matrix

and...? Any recommendations?

I asked this question in all seriousness. I am lucky enough to have a small amount of research funding, I want to promote the world of software beyond Google and Microsoft, and so I'm really keen on building a FOSS Academic Laboratory in the cloud and using to for any collaborative projects I'm a part of. After all, it's my Goal #1: to use FOSS for as much of my academic work as is possible.

The response I got to the questions was freakin' awesome!

I thought it would be a good idea to catalog it here. I'll start with the least-recommended things and work my way up to the most-recommended. That's not to say this is a ranking -- things mentioned only once might be really valuable. I'm really just noting what was mentioned most.

I'll also note which ones I am considering deploying -- again, this is not a commentary on the quality of any of these systems. It's more related to my own specific use cases forged in the past decade of academic collaborations.

Fidus Writer

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• Goal 1